GIFT  OF 


"^  ** 

« 


OEW1TT&SNEIUKG 


LIFE. 


Life  is  a  struggle,-  a  school;  a  test  of  fitness. 
No  struggle,  no  school.     No  school,  no  fitness. 
No  fitness,   no  future— either  in  this   world 
or  in  any  that  may  follow. 


BY 

JOHN  RANKIN  ROGERS. 


SAN  FRANCISCO  •. 

THE  WHITAKER  &  RAY  COMPANY 

(Incorporated) 

J899 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

I.   R.   ROGERS 

1899 


c5... 


CONTENTS. 

AA 

The  Individual  Life        .  Page    5 

The  Kingdom  of  Hope       .  .      "     40 

The  Law  of  Advance  and  the  Gospel  of 

Work "70 

The  Progress  of  Man         .  .      "    J03 


313141 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  LIFE. 


fHERE  are,  I  think,  but  two  ways  in 
which  we  are  able  to  form  opinions, 
or  to  judge  of  new  thoughts  as  they 
are  presented  to  us  for  consideration. 
One,  the  usual,  common  and  vulgar 
method,  adopted,  too,  by  many  who  con- 
sider themselves  as  educated  men,  consists 
in  approving  or  disapproving  a  thought 
in  accordance  with  an  opinion  previously 
formed  of  the  character  of  the  utterer. 
If  we  have  been  favorably  impressed  by 
a  man,  or  the  school  to  which  he  belongs, 
we  commonly  approve  what  he  says.  If 
we  dislike  him,  or  his  school,  we  have 
no  liking  for  his  thoughts.  This  is  the 
short  and  easy  method  in  ordinary  use.  It 
is  not  confined  to  ignorant  men. 


The  other  course  consists  in  diligently 
and  conscientiously  comparing  the  new 
thought  with  our  own.  If,  after  this  has 
been  done,  we  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
the  new  is  superior,  that  is,  truer,  we  pro- 
ceed, without  regard  to  consequences — and 
the  consequences  often  involve  great  pres- 
ent calamity, — to  substitute  the  new  for  the 
old. 

Those  who  do  this,  in  greater  or  less  de- 
gree, live  The  Individual  Life.  From  their 
ranks  have  come  all  the  poets,  prophets, 
seers,  discoverers,  thinkers — all  the  truly 
great  ones  of  earth !  These  have  possessed 
the  courage  of  their  convictions.  These 
have  dared  to  differ,  and  differing  have  sup- 
ported their  opinions  at  the  cost  of  what- 
ever opposed.  These  have  known  from  the 
beginning  that  one  man  and  God  make  a 
majority.  From  them  the  world  has 
learned  all  it  knows  to-day. 

They  have  dared  to  stand  alone! 

I  have  never  ceased  to  admire  the  motto 
of  the  English  coat  of  arms:  "  God  and  my 


LIFE  7 

Right/'  It  expresses  much.  First:  God, 
justice,  absolute  equity.  Next:  my  right, 
my  opinion,  my  individuality.  Eight  hun- 
dred years  of  forceful,  successful  advance 
may  be  read  in  that  short  phrase.  I  be- 
lieve no  nation,  no  college  class,  can  take 
that  as  a  motto,  endeavoring  to  live  up  to 
it,  without  turning  out  many  who  will 
make  their  mark  in  the  world.  Individ- 
uality is  everything.  To  be  without  it  is 
to  be  nothing. 

The  only  fly  in  this  ointment  of  otherwise 
immeasurable  value  is  this:  One  man's 
right  has  been  wrongly  made  to  include 
that  of  many  others.  But  this  is  an  in- 
fringement, a  misstatement  and  a  plain  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  The  assertion  of  indi- 
vidual right  in  matters  religious  was  great 
Luther's  contention.  The  declaration  of 
individual  right  in  matters  political,  each 
man  for  himself,  was  the  remedy  our 
fathers  found,  and  I  may  add,  as  has  been 
well  stated  by  another,  we  shall  find  no 
other.  The  later  declaration  of  Herbert 


8  LIFE 

Spencer  makes  all  scientifically  clear.  This 
is,  in  substance :  "  Each  has  a  right  to  do 
whatsoever  he  wills,  provided  in  the  doing 
he  infringe  not  the  equal  right  of  every 
other."  The  dictum  of  Spencer,  taken  in 
connection  with  the  motto  of  the  English 
shield:  "  Dieu  et  mon  Droit,"  forms  a 
perfect  code,  political,  moral  and  religious, 
for  Spencer's  statement  is  simply  the 
Golden  Rule  differently  stated. 

Among  wild  animals  the  individual  mem- 
bers of  a  particular  species  are  so  much 
alike  in  appearance  as  to  seem  to  the  casual 
beholder  precisely  the  same.  But  change 
the  environment;  place  them  under  the 
control  of  man;  subject  them  to  his  tute- 
lage; let  all-healing  and  wonder-working 
time  have  its  will,  and  at  last  in  the  barn 
yard  of  a  later  day  appear  the  descendants 
of  an  original  stock  so  changed  in  form 
and  character  as  to  bear  little  resemblance 
to  their  progenitors  of  an  earlier  time.  And 
not  only  will  there  have  been  a  wonderful 
transformation  differentiating  the  past  from 


LIFE  9 

the  present,  but,  more  wonderful  still, 
diversity  of  form,  of  gifts  and  character, 
which  in  the  foretime  had  no  apparent 
existence,  has  now  become  marked  and 
established.  Individuality  'has  been  so 
educed  by  environment,  has  been  so  drawn 
forth  by  education,  as  to  appear  to  have 
had  here  its  creation.  And  yet  to  the  orig- 
inal and  individual  life  of  each  no  jot  or  tittle 
has  been  added.  The  species  was  created 
in  the  long  ago.  It  had  no  second  birth. 
Man  is  not  a  Creator.  No;  environment 
has  simply  and  slowly  emphasized  and 
magnified  the  precious  germ  of  individual 
life  and  character  with  which  each  bird  and 
beast,  each  plant  and  flower,  has  been  en- 
dowed by  an  Almighty  hand,  for  among 
them  all  no  two  are  found  precisely  and 
absolutely  the  same.  For  all  her  children 
and  for  every  form  of  life  kind  Nature  has 
a  special  and  peculiar  love  and  care,  and 
each  and  all  are  precious  in  her  sight. 

To  the  forest  crab  tree  nothing  has  been 
added.     And  yet  from   it  came  forth   the 


io  LIFE 

glorious  apple  of  to-day,  brilliant  in  color, 
huge  in  size  and  of  most  pleasant  taste. 
The  crab  has  been  educated.  From  it  came 
forth  all  that  now  appears.  Nor  has  there 
been  created  in  the  beautiful  fruit  of  to-day 
a  color  or  a  quality  which  did  not  in  some 
slight  degree  previously  have  place.  By 
the  process  of  education  individuality  in 
apples  has  been  so  enlarged  and  increased 
as  to  appear  to  have  had  here  its  origin. 

It  is  held  as  probable  that  the  first  animal 
to  be  domesticated  by  prehistoric  man  was 
his  most  faithful  friend  the  dog.  And  be- 
cause he  has  been  longer  subjected  to 
change  in  environment  greater  diversity 
among  individuals  has  resulted  than  in  the 
case  of  any  other  animal.  Diversity,  and 
differentiation,  a  marked  and  magnified  in- 
dividualism, necessarily  come  from  educa- 
tion, making  more  and  still  more  important 
the  character  of  each  particular  member  of 
the  species. 

As  with  dogs  and  apples,  so  with  men. 
Nature  is  no  respecter  of  persons.  For  all 


LIFE  if 

she  has  but  one  law.  In  a  wild  and  unedu- 
cated state  there  is  little  difference  to  be 
noted  between  the  members  of  a  given 
tribe  of  either  men  or  animals.  Latent 
calents  may  be  in  hiding  it  is  true.  Prac- 
tically, and  usually,  they  exist  as  mere 
possibilities  which  education  may  evolve 
into  actualities.  Or,  which,  without  it, 
may  continue  unnumbered  and  unknown. 
The  first  evidence  of  education  is  the  devel- 
opment of  diversity,  of  individual  and 
peculiar  powers.  Men  are  made  more  and 
more  unlike,  and  with  this  unlikeness 
comes  an  increased  and  increasing  force 
and  power.  Among  savages  one  man  may 
be  as  important  to  the  welfare  of  the  tribe 
as  another,  but  when  Moses  led  the  chil- 
dren of  Israel  forth  from  the  land  of  Egypt 
and  out  of  the  house  of  bondage  this  man 
was,  himself,  alone,  more  than  half  the 
power  of  the  throng,  for  Moses  was  learned, 
we  are  told,  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyp- 
tians. Indeed,  the  Hebrew  leader  in  his 
own  proper  person  came  near  being  what 


12  LIFE 

we  now  vulgarly  call,  "  the  whole  thing/' 
Education,  environment — for  that  which 
we  call  education  is  not  all  from  books  or 
the  teaching  of  a  professor — made  the 
Moses  of  whom  we  read.  Had  he  lacked 
this  education,  this  environment,  we,  in 
these  later  days  so  far  removed  from  his, 
had  never  known  of  him.  It  is  true  that  his 
possession  of  these  peculiar  privileges  of 
education  and  environment  was  dependent 
upon  a  higher  power,  but  this  is  equally 
true  to-day  of  you,  my  friend.  Did  you 
select  the  country  into  which  you  would  be 
born?  The  race,  the  time,  the  family  or  the 
religion?  It  is  indeed  a  most  acute  son 
who  shall  be  able  to  select  for  himself  a 
wise  father  and  a  beautiful  mother.  Were 
you  able  to  do  this?  And  these  things,  or 
the  lack  of  them,  make  us  what  we  are. 
Ourselves  we  do  not  see  as  we  should.  Of 
others  we  have  a  clearer  view.  Distance 
and  the  flight  of  time  lend  that  perspective 
which  places  human  action  and  human 
beings  in  their  proper  relation  the  one  to 


LIFE  13 

the  other.  With  this  we  are  able  to  see 
more  clearly  things  in  a  truer  light.  Too 
closely  held  one's  own  hand  may  hide  the 
sun!  Do  you  imagine  that  if  perchance  the 
Ego  within  your  breast  had  been  delivered 
for  birth  to  some  negro  mother  in  darkest 
Africa  that  you  who  now  sit  here  encircled 
by  all  that  exalts  and  embellishes  civilized 
life  would  then  and  in  that  case  be  other 
than  another  "  panting  negro  at  the  line?" 
Do  you  tell  me  that  Moses'  life  and  charac- 
ter were  the  result  of  the  direct  interposi- 
tion of  Divine  Power?  To  this  I  reply:  All 
that  you  have  and  are  is,  likewise,  the  gift 
of  the  Supreme.  The  Jews  may  select 
Abraham  to  be  their  father,  if  so  be  it  please 
their  fancy,  and  the  materialists,  the  literal- 
ists  may,  as  is  their  wont,  fasten  upon  some 
arboreal  ape  as  their  progenitor,  but  you 
and  I  remember  that  Jesus,  that  great  Rev- 
olutionist, taught  all  men  everywhere  to 
say:  "Our  Father,  who  art  in  Heaven." 
There's  no  monkey  business  about  that. 
Christianity,  which  whether  consciously 


it  LIFE 

or  unconsciously,  colors  every  thought  of 
our  modern  life,  first  taught  men  the  ex- 
ceeding worth,  the  infinite  value,  of  the 
human  soul,  of  the  individual  life  of  man, 
and  with  this  all  right  education  coincides 
and  agrees.  All  true  advance  is  in  this 
direction.  Luther  saw  this  most  clearly. 
Carried  to  its  logical  conclusion  his  con- 
tention was  an  assertion  of  the  right  of 
private  judgment  as  the  highest  tribunal 
known  to  man.  And  in  this  he  was  most 
eminently  right.  Thomas  Carlyle  has  also 
said :  "  There  is  but  one  temple  of  the 
Living  God;  the  human  body."  And  in 
this,  by  a  little  questioning,  we  shall  find 
that  all  men  substantially  agree.  Ask  the 
devotee  of  any  faith,  no  matter  how  devoted 
he  may  be  to  his  particular  sect :  Why  do 
you  believe  thus  and  so?  and  he  must 
answer,  if  he  speak  the  truth,  "  Because  I 
think  it  to  be  true."  He  has  referred  the 
matter  to  the  highest  court  known  to  him ; 
the  judgment  of  his  own  mind,  the  decision 
of  his  higher  and  better  self,  the  arbitra- 


LIFE  75 

ment  of  the  God  within.  The  truth  is  each 
man  is,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  his  own 
Prophet,  Priest  and  King. 

There  are  those  who  would  have  us  be- 
lieve that  the  future  is  to  show  a  greater 
uniformity  in  the  minds  of  men,  that  less 
of  difference  is  to  divide  them,  and  that 
some  day  all  are  to  occupy  the  same  mental 
plane.  No  greater  mistake  than  this  could 
be  made.  All  are,  I  believe,  one  day  to 
have  equal  opportunity.  But  this  equality 
of  opportunity,  which  I  hope  and  trust  will 
surely  come,  will  of  itself  produce  un- 
bounded diversity  of  effort.  Diversity  of 
effort  will,  in  turn,  emphasize,  increase  and 
magnify  those  points  of  unlikeness  pos- 
sessed by  each.  The  result  should  be  pat- 
ent to  every  thinking  man.  The  power, 
the  worth,  the  importance,  of  certain  fav- 
ored individuals  in  those  directions  where 
each  can  be  of  greatest  service  to  the  race 
will  thus  be  secured  and  perpetuated.  "  To 
him  that  hath  shall  be  given  and  from  him 
that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even  that 


16  LIFE 

which  he  hath."  This  is  a  hard  saying. 
But  it  is  true.  Most  true  sayings  bear 
hardly  upon  weakness  and  inefficiency. 
But  weakness  and  inefficiency  should  not 
be  made  prominent,  must  not  bear  sway, 
must  not  rule  or  teach.  For  if  they  do  then 
are  they  perpetuated.  Strength,  diversity, 
intellectual  gifts,  these  are  to  rule  the  com- 
ing race  and  carry  it  onward  in  that  grand 
advance  man  is  making  from  the  lowest  to 
the  highest  places  in  the  thought  and  esti- 
mation of  the  Creator.  That  man  may  ad- 
vance, weakness  and  mediocrity  must  per- 
ish. Men  must  be  attracted  and  lured  on- 
ward, and  ever  upward,  by  diversity  of  gifts 
and  an  increased  power  and  importance  in 
those  whom  they  follow  and  pattern  after. 
And  all  men  follow  after  some  one  or  some- 
what they  admire.  This  is  the  rule  and  law 
of  the  race ;  the  future  can  bring  no  change. 
Mankind,  it  is  seen,  advances  only  by  fol- 
lowing after  and  learning  of  those  individ- 
uals that  have  excelled.  In  no  other  way 
is  the  ascent  of  humanity  from  lower  to 


LIFE  17 

higher  conditions  secured.  That  the  race 
may  go  forward,  individuals  must  differ 
from  the  common  herd,  must  excel.  Su- 
periority must  exist  before  it  can  be  imi- 
tated and  patterned  after.  In  the  whole 
course  of  the  past,  man  has  advanced  only 
by  following  a  leader.  Thus,  and  thus 
only,  can  he  go  forward.  Every  cause 
must  have  its  exemplar  and  advocate. 
Look  at  the  long  line  of  heroes,  prophets, 
martyrs,  scholars,  poets,  discoverers !  These 
have  been  the  schoolmasters  of  the  race, 
and  men  have  followed  them  because  in 
some  direction  they  differed,  excelled  and 
were  superior  as  individuals.  Thus  we  see 
that  the  loss  and  failure  of  weakness  and 
mediocrity  is  the  gain  of  the  race.  How- 
ever, in  the  long  run  no  sparrow  falls  to  the 
ground  unwisely  or  uncared  for  by  your 
Father.  All  have  their  appointed  place  and 
duty. 

That  I  speak  the  truth  in  this  matter  will 
be  clear  when  we  remember  that  the  course 
of  nature  is  always,  in  the  long  run, 


i8  LIFE 

an  advance.  As  the  tiny  tendril  ever 
seeks  the  sun,  so  man,  often  as  unthink- 
ing as  the  plant,  turns,  instinctively 
upward,  toward  the  Infinite  Light.  The 
rule  and  law  of  the  Universe  finally 
will  prevail.  From  the  simple  to  the  com- 
plex is  the  rule.  From  the  homogenous  to 
the  heterogenous.  The  frog  shows  a 
change  in  structure  from  that  of  its  original 
fish-like  form.  It  has  become  an  amphib- 
ian. It  has  advanced.  Nature  does  not 
go  backward.  No  amphibian  becomes  a 
fish.  If  forced  to  live  the  life  of  a  fish  the 
frog  will  die.  So  is  it  with  men.  Civiliza- 
tion may  rot;  may  die;  but  civilized  man 
cannot  return  to  the  ignorant  and  peaceful 
life  of  the  savage.  The  complex  cannot 
become  again  the  simple  or  the  heteroge- 
nous the  homogenous. 

Anciently,  we  are  told,  men  thought  that 
the  sun,  having  through  the  day  finished  his 
course  from  east  to  west,  stole  back  in  the 
darkness  of  the  night  in  order  that  he 
might  be  in  place  to  begin  again,  attended 


LIFE  i9 

by  Aurora,  the  ascent  of  the  eastern  sky. 
I  think  we  may  safely  conclude  that  when 
the  sun  does  turn  backward  the  wheels  of 
time,  then,  and  in  that  event,  civilized  man 
will  descend  from  the  complexity  of  the 
educated  present  to  the  simplicity  and 
dull  platitude  of  intellectual  equality.  It 
cannot  be.  Nature  has  her  ways,  her  rules 
and  laws.  We  do  not  make  them.  Our 
duty  is  to  learn,  not  to  quarrel  with  fate. 
And  nature  in  us  is  bound  fast  in  fate  in 
this,  that  we  are  totally  and  absolutely  un- 
able to  estimate  our  standing  in  any  direc- 
tion save  by  comparison  with  that  of  our 
fellows.  We  cannot  see  that  we  have  ad- 
vanced, that  we  have  increased  in  knowl- 
edge, wealth  or  power  unless  able  to  note 
our  superiority  in  one  direction  or  another 
over  that  of  at  least  some  portion  of  our 
kind.  This  necessitates,  making  absolutely 
certain,  emulation,  rivalry,  the  survival  of 
the  fittest.  Diversity,  complexity  of  effort 
and  increasing  power  of  the  individual  man 
is  the  sure  and  unfailing  result.  If,  then, 


20  LIFE 

this  is  the  course  of  nature — and  no  man 
can  deny  it — those  who  are  seeking  to 
differentiate  themselves  from  the  unthink- 
ing and  the  indifferent,  from  the  careless 
and  the  ignorant,  who  are  striving  to  excel 
their  fellows,  to  surmount  them  in  attain- 
ment, to  place  themselves  in  a  position  of 
superiority  to  them,  are  in  this  not  merely 
following  a  law  of  selfishness  and  disregard 
of  the  welfare  of  others,  but,  rather  are  they 
in  perhaps  unconscious  accord  with  the  de- 
crees of  nature,  working  out  the  advance- 
ment of  the  race  to  which  they  belong.  By 
following  our  own  course  and  our  own  ad- 
vancement we  are,  possibly  unknown  to 
ourselves,  assisting,  probably  to  the  extent 
of  our  ability,  in  carrying  onward  the  work 
of  the  world.  The  elevation  of  our  own  char- 
acter to  a  higher  plane  is  not  only  our  first 
duty  but  is  also  when  properly  interpreted 
the  sum  and  substance  of  all  duty.  In  the 
long  run  men  are  known  by  what  they  are. 
To  teach  others  wisely,  be  the  thing  you 
would  commend.  Such  teaching  the  world 


LIFE  21 

cannot  long  withstand.    Thus  only  can  men 
be  led. 

With  the  understanding  I  hav:  here  en- 
deavored to  communicate,  the  saying  of  a 
great  mind  is  most  true,  which  is,  that 
man's  chief  duty  in  life  is  "  To  secure  an 
adequate  and  masterful  expression  of  him- 
self." And  by  "  himself/'  of  course,  is 
meant  that  higher,  that  other  and  inward 
self  which  we,  each  for  ourselves  alone,  can 
know. 

The  trend  of  things  among  us,  however, 
is  to-day  leading  men  somewhat  away  from 
that  vigorous  American  individuality  which 
was  the  pride  and  glory  of  our  earlier  na- 
tional life.  Now,  we  are  more  apt  than 
formerly  to  depend  upon  what  some  other 
person  may  or  may  not  do.  Dependence 
upon  others,  upon  society,  upon  govern- 
ment, is  increasing.  The  young  men  in 
our  educational  institutions,  as  a  result,  are 
quite  generally  looking  forward  to  the  time 
when  they  may  enter  the  service  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, of  some  corporation,  obtain  a 


22  LIFE 

"position,"  or,  at  least,  have  their  names 
placed  upon  somebody's  payroll.  In  a 
word  they  are,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
becoming  dependent  and  are  in  danger  of 
losing  that  independent  individuality  from 
which  has  arisen  in  the  past  all  of  value  in 
our  distinctive  American  character.  Our 
young  men  are,  in  this  matter  becoming 
more  like  the  youth  in  foreign  lands.  This 
is  to  be  avoided,  and  must  be  remedied. 

Every  age  has  a  prevailing  and  distin- 
guishing form  of  thought  running  through 
its  mental  deliverances ;  a  keynote  to  which 
everything  in  the  world  of  mind  is  referred 
and  with  which  it  must  agree.  Looking 
backward  along  the  course  of  time  we  can 
see  this  in  the  past.  The  classical  age,  as 
seen  in  ancient  Greece,  had  its  keynote. 
This  seems  to  have  been  delight  in  mere 
existence,  the  worship  of  beauty,  of  sculp- 
ture, painting,  architecture,  the  human 
form  divine.  This  is  seen  in  the  life  of  the 
people.  It  colored  all  their  thoughts.  At 
the  time  no  man  doubted  the  rightfulness 


LIFE  23 

of  the  then  prevalent  view  of  things.  Now 
we  are  beginning  to  see  that  this  repre- 
sented only  a  part  of  the  truth. 

The  medieval  age  we  can  now  see  had  its 
keynote,  too, — it  was  religion,  and  other 
worldliness.  The  results  are  before  us 
spread  upon  the  pages  of  history.  That 
-day  and  its  doings  are  not  to  be  imitated 
by  us.  That  were  impossible.  And  it  is 
well  that  it  is  so.  Those  were  the  dark 
ages.  When  man  makes  of  himself  a  worm 
of  the  dust  he  must  not  quarrel  with  the  fate 
of  worms,  which  is  to  be  trodden  under 
foot. 

That  the  present  age  has  its  keynote 
there  can  be  no  question,  though  actors 
upon  the  stage  of  to-day  may  not  be  quali- 
fied to  clearly  set  it  forth.  A  brilliant  writer 
tells  us  that  this  age  differs  from  all  that 
have  preceded  it  in  that  we  appear  to  have 
no  conservatives,  none  who  wish  to  pre- 
serve the  present  as  it  is.  All  wish  for 
change — of  some  kind.  Pessimism,  uni- 
versal discontent,  is,  he  appears  to  think, 


24.  LIFE 

the  keynote  of  the  present  age,  and  he  has 
much  to  offer  in  support  of  his  contention. 
If  it  be  true  that  discontent  is  universal  we 
may  be  certain  that  this  mental  cause  will 
be  quite  sufficient  to  produce  a  change — 
of  some  kind.  When  all  wish  for  change  it 
will  be  certain  to  come  and,  I  may  remark, 
it  will  be  likely  not  altogether  to  please 
anybody  when  it  does  come.  While  it  is 
certainly  impossible  for  us  who  are  con- 
cerned in  the  life  of  to-day  to  accurately 
measure  the  collective  thought  of  our  own 
age,  certain  parts  and  portions,  certain  ten- 
dencies of  the  time,  may  quite  readily  be 
seen.  Among  these  one  appears  most  pro- 
nounced and  marked.  It  is  now  an  almost 
universal  habit  among  men  to  enlarge  upon 
and  make  much  of  the  power  of  concerted 
effort.  The  co-operation  of  a  sufficient 
number  of  men  is  supposed  to  be  alone  able 
to  produce  any  desired  result.  The  power 
of  the  majority  and  its  right  to  settle  a 
question  of  morals  is  scarcely  questioned, 
while  organized  society  is  made  to  stand 


LIFE  25 

in  the  place  of  right,  of  God  himself.  What 
the  majority  of  men  are  thinking  we  think; 
what  they  do  we  strive  to  imitate.  The  vast 
power  of  masses  of  men  working  to  a  de- 
sired end  in  industrial  affairs  and  the  won- 
derful results  thus  achieved  in  our  material 
civilization  have  turned  our  heads.  We 
have  jumped  to  an  unwarranted  conclusion. 
We  have  foolishly  supposed  that  the  laws  of 
matter  are  applicable  to  mind!  Thus  we 
are  led  to  depend  upon  others  for  what  we 
should  do  for  ourselves.  Individuality  is 
destroyed.  Mental  weakness  and  social 
tyranny  follow  as  a  matter  of  course.  This 
is  a  keynote  to  which  much  of  our  life  is 
now  attuned.  "  Man  "  has  become,  in  our 
thought,  a  mere  noun  of  multitude,  thus 
obscuring  in  some  degree  the  infinite  value 
and  the  eternal  regnancy  of  the  individual 
soul!  "  The  unit  of  value  and  the  starting 
point  in  all  mental  comprehension  is  the  in- 
dwelling, individual  soul  of  man!  Men 
are  not  valued  because  they  do  not  differ 
the  one  from  the  other.  This  is  said  to  be 


26  LIFE 

a  point  of  worth  in  chickens.  These  must 
be  true  to  feather.  They  must  conform. 
But  chickens  are  sold  by  the  dozen.  And 
rightly,  too,  for  one  chicken  counts  for  very 
little  in  any  market.  Only  the  noncon- 
formist was  ever  truly  great.  And  only  the 
great  are  worthy  to  be  followed  by  us.  Even 
though  it  never  be  reached,  the  aim,  the 
model,  must  be  high.  Shakespere  is  valued 
not  because  he  was  like  other  men  but  be- 
cause he  was  not.  It  is  not  his  likeness  but 
his  unlikeness  to  those  by  whom  he  was 
surrounded  that  made  him  of  value  to  the 
race — or  to  himself.  Shakespere  lived  the 
individual  life!  He  looked  within.  There, 
within  the  confines  of  his  own  soul,  resided 
his  power. 

A  late  writer,  extensively  read,  has  un- 
dertaken to  show  us  the  solution  of  a  mys- 
tery. He  holds  that  every  man  possesses  a 
dual  consciousness,  an  objective  and  a  sub- 
jective mind.  The  usual,  common  and 
ordinary  thought  of  man  is  objective.  The 
unusual,  the  uncommon,  the  recondite,  the 


LIFE  27 

occult,  the  ghostly,  belongs  to  the  sub- 
jective mind  which  lies  half  concealed  from 
its  possessor,  holding  yet  within  its  grasp 
secret  treasures,  which  under  favorable 
conditions  are  sometimes  suddenly  revealed 
to  the  consternation  of  all  beholders.  The 
subjective  mind  never  forgets.  Whatever 
has  been  once  spoken  of  in  its  hearing  is 
forever  held  and  may  thus  upon  occasion 
be  drawn  upon.  Shakespere,  this  author 
tells  us,  owes  his  power  to  the  fact  that  with 
him  the  objective  and  subjective  minds 
were  in  full  and  complete  accord;  the  or- 
dinary, every  day  sense  of  the  man  holding 
a  perfect  mastery  over  the  subjective  treas- 
ures of  his  mind.  All  that  he  had  ever 
known,  heard  or  seen,  in  this,  or  a  previous 
world,  was  at  the  command  of  this  other- 
wise quite  ordinary  player  and  maker  of 
rhymes. 

For  myself  I  must  confess  that  this  given 
as  a  reason  for  the  vast  superiority  of  one 
mind  over  another  is  unsatisfactory.  It  is 
an  explanation  which  does  not  explain. 


28  LIFE 

But  there  is  another  view  of  this  matter 
which  to  me  appears  greater,  grander  and 
more  nearly  in  accord  with  our  apprehen- 
sion of  truth.  Indeed,  I  think  I  may  say 
that  this  later  presentation  of  opinion  is  in 
line  with  the  better  thought  of  the  age. 
The  trend  of  opinion  among  cultivated  men 
clearly  favoring,  in  greater  or  less  degree, 
the  new  thought.  I  will  endeavor  to 
state  it. 

Throughout  the  vast  universe  there  is 
but  one  Intelligence  which  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree  permeates  all  matter.  Each  and 
every  manifestation  of  mind  is  an  offshoot 
from  the  Divine.  Human  intelligences  are 
so  many  sparks  from  the  Infinite  Light. 
The  mind  of  man  is  capable  of  being 
brought  into  correspondence  with  the  great 
Source  of  all  knowledge.  And  thus,  under 
favorable  conditions,  the  light  of  a  Supreme 
Intelligence  shines,  faintly  or  strongly,  into 
the  comprehension  of  those  whom  Nature 
has  selected  as  her  favorites.  These  the 
world  hails  as  possessed  of  genius.  Blinded 


LIFE  29 

with  the  light  received  in  one  direction, 
however,  much  obliquity  of  vision  in  others 
is  often  manifested  by  the  favored  ones. 
Thus,  genius  to  madness  is  near  allied,  and 
the  great  ones  of  earth  often  show  surpris- 
ing weakness  in  one  direction  while  attract- 
ing the  acclaim  of  the  world  for  marvelous 
strength  in  another.  But  the  ability  to  rely 
upon  unseen  forces  comes  unsought  and  by 
favor.  To  some  it  is  given,  to  others  de- 
nied. But  let  every  man  be  himself.  This 
first  of  all.  For  so  will  he  follow  the  course 
marked  out  for  him  by  the  forces  which 
rule  over  fate. 

Thus  I  have  attempted  to  sum  up  the 
new,  and  it  may  be  the  revolutionary, 
thought  of  our  time.  Most  will  judge  of  it 
by  reference  to  preconceived  notions  of 
men  and  schools.  Those  who  live  The  In- 
dividual Life  will  ask  themselves  simply — 
"  Is  it  true?" 

He  who  would  advance  must  learn  to 
think.  And  he  must  use  his  own  mind;  for 
if  we  are  to  have  independent  and  self-gov- 


jo  LIFE 

erning  minds  we  must  all  think  and  decide 
for  ourselves  each  and  every  matter  pre- 
sented to  us  for  decision.  Every  man 
worthy  the  name  of  man  must  be  his  own 
man  and  not  the  mere  weak  copy  of  an- 
other. Thought,  to  be  valuable,  must  con- 
centrate in  the  mind  of  the  thinker  and  to 
achieve  the  best  results  he  must  be  much 
alone.  He  must  appeal  to  his  own  better 
self.  If  constantly  surrounded  by  his  fel- 
lows the  influences  coming  from  them  pre- 
vent that  concentration  of  mind  necessary 
to  the  best  thought.  The  student  at  col- 
lege, despite  his  surroundings,  is  much 
alone;  his  study  demands  it.  But  the  con- 
ditions and  surroundings  of  the  student  are 
not  possible  to  the  great  plain  people,  nor 
is  it  well  that  they  should  be.  There  is  a 
better  school — the  school  of  nature — which 
may  be  opened  to  all,  if  men  can  but  use  it 
aright.  Go  talk  to  the  shy  and  silent  man 
who  has  spent  his  life  as  a  hunter,  far  from 
the  haunts  of  men.  Though  he  cannot  read 
a  word  of  your  written  language  and  speaks 


LIFE  31 

with  stumbling  hesitation  he  has  rich  gems 
of  thought,  which,  when  you  have  compre- 
hended them,  as  you  may  not  at  first,  will 
amaze  and  delight  you.  And  yet,  naturally 
his  mind  was  of  a  low  order,  and  what  he 
has  now  was  forced  upon  him  by  the  very 
awe  and  magnificence  of  the  processes  of 
nature  by  which  he  has  been  surrounded. 
And  in  the  untutored  savage,  unspoiled  by 
so-called  civilization  and  uncorrupted  by 
false  knowledge,  you  shall  find  the  same. 

Go,  then,  from  these  men  of  wisdom, 
who  yet  may  be  called  ignorant,  to  those 
who  are  not  ignorant,  and  who  still  have 
no  wisdom.  You  know  where  to  find  them. 
The  camp,  the  mart  and  the  factory  are  full 
of  them.  Seeing  they  see  not  and  hearing 
they  hear  not.  Their  eyes  are  holden  by  the 
influences  that  come  unbidden  from  their 
fellows;  from  sight  of  the  sins  and  follies, 
which  animal-like  they  are  forced  to  imi- 
tate, and  their  ears  are  deafened  by  the  ba- 
bel of  evil  communications  which  corrupt 
good  manners  and  minds.  Up  to  the  years 


32  LIFE 

of  discretion — if  they  ever  come — we  learn 
evil  readily  and  good  but  hardly.  Such  is 
the  fatal  constitution  of  the  human  mind 
and  so  is  destiny  fixed.  One  boy,  of  him- 
self, may  do  much  of  good ;  a  dozen  and  the 
devil  is  to  pay.  And  men  are  but  children 
of  a  larger  growth.  Men  are  ashamed  in 
the  crowd  to  utter  their  higher  thoughts, 
while  folly  has  eager  currency.  All  this 
has  its  effect  upon  the  formation  of  charac- 
ter. No  man  in  the  rabble  escapes  its 
power  while  he  remains  in  it.  Let  any  man 
be  one  of  a  company  and  he  must  adopt  the 
current  thought  of  the  company;  otherwise 
he  is  jeered  into  silence.  Most  will  con- 
form; a  few,  a  very  few,  may  not.  And  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  in  a  mixed  company 
high  thought  is  not  current  and  folly  is,  the 
multitude  tread  the  broad  road  which  leads 
downward.  Downward  to  animalism.  Go 
among  the  workmen  of  the  cities  in  time  of 
prosperity.  Many  receive  high  wages;  the 
flower  of  civilization  is  theirs  for  the  pluck- 
ing. Libraries,  lectures,  art  galleries,  the 


LIFE  33 

treasuries  of  the  world  are  at  hand. 
But  they  heed  them  not.  A  few,  a  very 
few,  may,  but  they  form  only  the  excep- 
tion that  proves  the  rule.  A  few  save 
money,  taking  the  advice  of  the  wealth 
getter,  that  they,  too,  may  become  wealth 
holders  and  extortioners  in  their  turn. 
They  are  no  better  than  the  other  fools  who 
follow  only  present  pleasure.  These  wait 
for  the  future  pleasure  of  extorting  from 
their  fellows.  But  find  the  majority.  You 
will  not  need  to  seek  them  far.  After  work 
and  supper,  the  street,  the  saloon  and  the 
brothel,  the  gaming  table,  cards,  alcohol 
and  tobacco.  Who  needs  to  tell  the  story; 
do  we  not  all  know  it?  And  the  crowd  of 
to-day  is  but  a  repetition  of  the  past.  Man's 
nature  is  ever  the  same.  The  mob  in  the 
"marble"  city  ofv  Rome,  surrounded  by 
beautiful  architecture,  sculpture,  and  the 
intellectual  treats  of  the  Forum,  cried  only 
for  "bread  and  games ;"  something  to  eat 
and  to  amuse.  And  they  were  not  ignorant, 
for  the  time.  Far  from  it.  But,  that  elder 


34-  LIFE 

day,  when  to  be  a  Roman  was  greater  than 
a  king,  had  departed.  They  had  become  "a 
community."  They  were  dependent.  In- 
dividuality was  lost.  They  were  unable  to 
live  the  individual  life,  from  which  alone 
can  come  forth  strength  of  mind  and  char- 
acter. They  theorized  upon  such  proposi- 
tions as  "all  for  each  and  each  for  all,"  and 
the  man  who  thinks  the  theorizers  of  that 
day  were  anywise  inferior  to  those  of  to-day 
knows  nothing  of  man  and  his  history. 

The  proudest,  the  freest  and  the  truest 
Roman  days  were  the  early  days  when  each 
family  possessed  its  little  farm.  In  the  soli- 
tude of  a  country  life  men  become  self- 
reliant,  free!  Once  upon  a  time  the  Vols- 
cians  threatened  the  home  owners  of  Rome. 
Cincinnatus,  the  general,  being  sent  for, 
the  messenger  found  him  plowing  his  field. 
Summoned  to  the  supreme  dictatorship,  in 
a  memorable  campaign  of  sixteen  days  he 
had  beaten  the  enemy  and  retired  to  his 
field  and  his  plow.  News  of  the  battle  of 
Lexington  reaching  Putnam,  he  left  his 


LIFE  35 

team  yoked  to  the  plow  and  hastened  to  the 
defense  of  free  institutions.  These  were 
men.  And  they  were  the  product  of  condi- 
tions; and  these  are,  in  course,  freedom, 
solitude,  self-reliance,  courage,  character. 
Of  these  freedom  is  first.  The  condition 
precedent  to  all  ethical  action  is  the  free- 
dom of  the  actor. 

There  is  a  word  dearer  than  even  mother, 
home  or  heaven.  It  is  Liberty !  The  word 
denotes  a  condition.  This  condition  is  the 
desire  of  the  heart  of  man,  for  in  it  alone 
true  self-hood  is  possible.  How  then  may 
man  obtain  and  keep  it?  I  answer:  By  the 
formation  within  himself  of  an  invincible 
determination.  Help  does  not  come  from 
without,  but  from  within.  "  The  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  is  within  you."  And  so  is  the 
Kingdom  of  power. 

He  who  would  be  free  himself  must 
strike  the  blow.  And  freedom  is  the  end 
and  aim  of  all  man's  struggles  upon  this 
earth.  Every  just  contention  of  man,  since 
the  world  began,  has  had  freedom  as  its 


36  LIFE 

object.  Freedom  of  the  individual.  We 
are  to  know  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall 
make  us  free.  This  is  the  end.  This  is 
what  we  are  bidden  to  work,  to  strive,  to 
agonize,  to  obtain.  Freedom  from  igno- 
rance makes  the  wise  man,  the  educated 
man.  Freedom  from  poverty  the  truly 
rich  man;  from  vice  and  evil  thoughts  the 
good  man.  Indeed  the  constant  warfare  of 
the  virtuous  is  waged  for  the  purpose  of 
freeing  himself  from  the  sin  that  doth  so 
easily  beset  him. 

Stepping,  for  a  moment  into  the  domain 
of  politics,  of  economics,  we  see  that  the 
evil  is  still  the  same.  The  end  here  to  be 
sought  is  freedom;  freedom  from  the  never- 
ending  exactions,  the  speciously  proposed 
and  insidiuously  argued  schemes  of  those 
who  would  make  merchandise  of  the  toil 
and  tears,  the  flesh  and  blood  of  poor,  igno- 
rant, deluded,  long-suffering  humanity. 

My  friends  there  is  in  life  but  one  battle 
to  be  fought;  but  one  just  warfare.  Liberty 
is  its  object.  The  liberty  of  the  individual. 


LIFE  37 

The  spirit  of  this  never-ending  struggle  has 
animated  man  from  the  beginning  and  will 
to  the  end.  From  the  time  when  in  the 
darkling  mists  of  antiquity  he  first  meets 
our  gaze  to  that  far  day  when  He  that  rules 
the  world  shall  say :  "  It  is  enough!"  Then 
man  shall  be  free!  Then  the  morning  stars'  • 
shall  sing  together,  and  amid  the  silver 
chiming  of  the  spheres  all  the  sons  of  God 
shout  for  joy. 

Until. that  time,  duty  calls  us  in  our  sev- 
eral fields  to  the  fray.  There  is  no  release 
in  this  war.  Cowards  and  laggards  may  cry 
retreat;  but  for  us  upon  whom  has  come 
the  weight  of  mental  responsibility,  of  com- 
prehension of  duty,  there  is,  there  can  be, 
no  thought  of  release.  The  battle  is  yet  on; 
the  sounds  of  the  fray,  the  neighing  of 
horses  and  the  shouting  of  men  come 
faintly  to  our  ears.  Once  more  then  dear 
friends  into  the  breach. 

In  all  the  affairs  of  life,  its  successes  and 
its  failures,  its  joys  and  its  sorrows,  we  have 
upon  which  we  may  at  all  times  rely  only 


38  LIFE 

ourselves  and  the  God  within.  All  else  in 
time  of  trial  may  leave  and  fcrsake  us;  and 
if  the  trial  be  severe  enough  surely  will  do 
so.  But  these  two  remain.  If  we  are  true; 
if  we  are  sincere,  even  though  partly 
in  the  wrong,  we  are  certain  of  ultimate 
victory. 

We  are  then  to  depend  upon  ourselves! 
Self-reliance  is  the  greatest  virtue;  for  he 
who  devoutly  relies  upon  himself  has  in 
this  done  all  he  can  to  rely  upon  God. 

We  all  remember  the  story  of  Hernando 
Cortez.  Young,  able,  brilliant,  resourceful; 
cruel,  to  be  sure,  but  not  more  so  than 
others  of  his  time  and  race.  Inspired  by  the 
thought  that  he  was  to  conquer  a  world 
for  Spain  and  the  cross,  with  a  mere  hand- 
ful of  men  he  is  set  down  upon  the  shores 
of  Mexico.  In  front  of  him  millions  of  men, 
a  nation  to  oppose.  But  no  thought  of 
retreat  or  coward  ease  inspires  his  intrepid 
soul.  With  true  genius,  an  innate  mastery 
of  men,  he  makes  their  release  impossible. 
He  burns  his  ships  upon  the  shores  of  the 


LIFE  s9 

impassable  sea!  Henceforth  it  is  victory 
or  death!  All  other  resource  than  their 
own  good  right  arms  has  now  vanished  in 
the  burning  and  gone  up  in  smoke.  They 
are  forced  to  depend  alone  upon  them- 
selves !  We  know  the  result. 

We,  too,  stand  upon  the  borders  of  a/i  un- 
known future.  A  world  is  before  us.  Fresh 
and  fair  it  is  but  filled  with  pitfalls  and  lurk- 
ing foes.  There  is  no  retreat  possible.*  We 
too  must  conquer  or  be  conquered. 

He  who  would  win  fame,  and  dying,  as 
die  he  must,  leave  a  name  that  shall  prove 
an  inspiration  and  a  benediction  to  all  who 
shall  come  after  him,  let  him  live  The  In- 
dividual Life;  let  him  grasp  his  sword  with 
firmer  hold  and  strike,  as  did  our  ancestors 
in  centuries  that  are  past;  for  "  God  and 
my  Right." 


THE  KINGDOM  OF  HOPE. 


fHE  wise  old  Greek  told  us,  now  many 
centuries  ago,  that  the  summing  up 
of  all  his  teaching  was  this:  "  Man 
know  thyself."  To  this  we  of  a  later  day 
can  add  but  little.  For,  if  one  do 
thoroughly  know  himself  our  experience 
with  men  will  show  us  that  having  this 
knowledge  he  is  a  remakable  man  who 
has  in  this  mastered  the  saving  part  of 
all  that  is  to  be  known.  Evidently  the 
workman  must  first  know  his  tools.  If 
he  do  not  then  he  is  no  workman,  and 
only  a  pretender  whom  the  first  trial  of 
skill  shall  dishonor.  And  sooner  or  later 
the  trial  comes  to  all.  Every  carpenter  is 
asked,  some  day,  to  show  his  work,  his  skill 
and  the  deftness  of  his  hand.  He  cannot  al- 


LIFE  41 

ways  pretend.  The  time  will  come  when 
he  must  use  the  implements  of  his  trade. 
If  then  it  be  seen  that  he  has  not  long  be- 
fore most  thoroughly  known  and  mastered 
the  thing  he  is  called  upon  to  handle  deri- 
sion is  written  upon  the  face  of  every  be- 
holder, and  when  next  he  speaks  of  his  craft 
the  tongue  of  scorn  is  ready  in  the  cheek 
of  his  hearer.  Doubtless  the  dray  horse's 
stubby  colt  scampering  in  the  fields  may 
think  himself  a  match  in  fleetness  for  any 
racer  minded  to  enter  the  lists  against  him, 
for  so  it  would  appear.  One  trial  will,  how- 
ever, suffice;  his  thick  stumpy  legs  are  not 
made  for  speed.  He  does  not  know  him- 
self. Men,  too,  often  essay  that  for  which 
they  have  no  fitness  and  when  as  a  result 
brought  to  shame  are  wont  inwardly  to 
mourn  the  absence  of  that  impossible  power 
which  might  give  us  leave  to  see  ourselves 
as  others  see  us.  But  this,  were  it  possible, 
is  not  what  is  really  needed.  One  must 
know  himself  for  what  he  is,  not  as  other 
men  behold  him ;  for  the  beholder  has  ever 


4.2  LIFE 

a  jealous  eye  and  sees  a  possible  competitor 
in  every  performance  of  man.  If  other 
men's  estimate  of  ourselves  were  all  re- 
quired one  might  select  a  mentor  and  to 
him  and  his  decision  resign  his  darling 
hope!  But  this  were  the  death  of  all 
progress  and  all  advance.  Who  could  have 
foreseen  the  greatness  of  Lincoln  and  prop- 
erly advised  the  boy  struggling  with  un- 
toward influences?  Of  his  ridiculous  fail- 
ures, his  loutish  behavior  and  vulgar 
stories,  who,  having  within  him  the  instinct 
of  culture  and  the  mind  of  a  gentleman, 
could  in  Lincoln's  salad  days  have  per- 
ceived the  beginnings  of  an  emancipator 
and  a  statesman?  Had  he  then  seen  him- 
self as  others  saw  him  the  noble  rage  of 
that  grand  spirit  would  have  been  forever 
repressed  and  the  genial  current  of  his  soul 
frozen  by  the  icy  stare  of  an  unsympathetic 
world.  Thank  God  Lincoln  saw  himself  as 
others  did  not.  Within  his  heart  blossomed 
the  flowers  that  grow  only  when  called  into 
being  by  the  genial  sun  of  the  Kingdom  of 


LIFE  43 

Hope.  Lincoln  hoped  great  things  for 
himself.  This,  and  this  only,  made  the 
emancipator  a  possibility.  A  great  hope  of 
future  preferment  possessed  him;  lifted  him 
above  the  vacuous  animalism  of  the  people 
by  whom  he  was  surrounded  and  of  whom 
he  was  begot.  He  knew  himself  far  better 
than  did  the  others  who  saw  him  in  the  days 
of  his  early,  or  indeed  his  later,  struggles. 
Let  no  man  despair  because  of  the  preju- 
diced frown  of  his  neighbor.  If  he  have 
within  the  witness  of  his  own  spirit  let  him 
believe  in  himself  and  live.  For  if  he  accept 
the  judgment  of  tho'se  who  enter  into  com- 
petition with  'him  he  is  condemned  already. 
They  will  damn  him  with  faint  praise  or, 
perchance,  if  more  honest,  give  him  the 
coup  de  grace  at  once  and  forever.  No  man 
of  mark  ever  yet  accepted  as  final  the  judg- 
ment of  other  men  regarding  himself.  Of 
some  completed  work  of  his  he  may  and 
often  will  do  well  to  heed  the  opinion  of  the 
world,  but  in  himself  he  will  keep  his  faith  to 
the  end,  sure  that  somehow,  somewhere,  the 


U  LIFE 

brightest  visions  of  his  youth  will  yet  come 
true.  Men  of  note  we  are  all  able  to  see 
lived  in  the  Kingdom  of  Hope.  And  be- 
cause they  did  inhabit  it  and  were  there  re- 
ceived as  citizens  they  became  remarkable. 
The  very  air  of  that  land  is  inspiring.  And 
we  all  are  privileged  to  follow  them  at  a 
distance.  Indeed  great  men  are  ensamples 
unto  us,  sent  for  our  instruction.  But  if 
one  attempt  to  follow  let  'him  be  sure  of 
himself.  This  first  of  all.  Let  him  not  ac- 
cept the  honeyed  words  of  friends  and  rela- 
tives who  may  possibly  regard  him  as  very 
near  perfection  already.  No  loyal  wife  or 
doting  mother  can  be  trusted  here.  We 
must  know  ourselves,  as  we  are. 

Deep  down  in  the  very  constitution  of  all 
animal  life  lie  three  instincts  or  desires.  To 
preserve  his  life,  to  better  his  condition  and 
to  propagate  his  kind  make  up  the  life  of 
man  as  well  as  that  of  all  other  animals. 
And  upon  these  fleshly  instincts,  too,  are 
builded  the  highest  hopes  of  man's  mental 
existence.  One  of  these,  common  to  all 


LIFE  45 

animals,  is  the  desire  to  better  our  condi- 
tion, to  acquire  somewhat  which  shall  in- 
nure  to  our  advantage.  Throw  bones  to 
your  dogs  and  each  will  desire  to  possess 
himself  of  the  largest  and  the  best.  Cattle 
in  the  yard  will  fight  for  the  warmest  corner 
and  the  best  place  to  obtain  their  food. 
Men,  too,  do  the  same.  From  highest  to 
lowest  the  struggle  for  advantage  is  ever 
on.  From  the  learned  man  struggling  to 
obtain  his  degree,  to  the  poor  devil  who 
fights  with  his  fellows  for  the  coin  thrown 
to  them  in  the  snow,  all  are  forced  by  a 
primal  law  of  being  to  seek  for  betterment. 
The  dog  that  will  not  strive  for  his  master's 
favor  is  no  dog  at  all.  The  bullock  that 
does  not  horn  his  fellow  from  the  food — if 
he  can — will  never  lay  on  fat  and  therefore 
does  not  serve  the  purpose  of  his  existence. 
The  man  who  does  not  struggle  to  acquire 
that  which  might  help  him  on  his  way  fails 
in  his  life,  has  indeed  lest  the  true  sense  of 
things  and  resigned  himself — having  first 
taken  leave  of  hope — to  an  untoward  end 


4.6  LIFE 

and  a  desperate  fate.  For  every  man  who 
hopes,  and  has  thereby  become  an  inhabit- 
ant of  the  Kingdom,  is  ever  ready,  as  a 
good  soldier,  to  do  battle  in  its  defense. 
And  this  animal  desire  for  betterment,  al- 
though from  it  comes  the  reign  of  tooth 
and  claw,  of  avarice  and  greed,  is  yet  the 
breeding  ground  and  starting  point  of  all 
improvement.  It  is  the  filthy  mud,  the 
slimy  ooze  from  whence  springs  the  pure 
white  lily  of  hope.  We  struggle  to  obtain, 
we  live  to  acquire.  And  why?  Why  in- 
deed but  for  the  fact  that  we  have  hope  in 
the  future;  that  somehow,  somewhere;  how 
we  cannot  say;  where  we  do  not  know, 
that  for  which  we  strive  shall  aid  us,  shall 
make  us  wiser,  better,  stronger,  wealthier 
or  more  powerful.  Nor  while  life  and  rea- 
son last  can  we  escape  the  absolute  mastery 
of  this  controlling  principle  of  our  nature. 
But  while  not  able  to  escape  it  men  still  are 
able  to  say  how  their  conduct  shall  be 
affected  by  this  desire,  and  upon  what  plane 
they  will  act;  whether  upon  the  lower  of 


LIFE  4.7 

mere  contention  and  greed,  or  the  higher 
of  emulation  and  rivalry  in  that  which  is 
good. 

As  sane  men  have  never  yet  escaped,  nor 
desired  to  escape,  the  hope  of  betterment  of 
condition,  so,  in  the  future  as  in  the  past 
the  normal  man  must  obey.  In  some  direc- 
tion he  will  strive  for  that  which  to  him  has 
greatest  value  and  brings  most  of  hope. 

There  are  those  who  would  have  us  be- 
lieve that  some  day  man  will  outgrow  and 
outlive  'this  primitive  and  fundamental  de- 
sire, this  constituent  part  of  his  nature, en- 
tering into  the  very  warp  and  woof  of  his 
being,  extending  from  his  first  desire  as  an 
infant  to  reach  his  mother's  breast  on  and 
on  and  up  until  it  embraces  that  hope  not 
made  with  hands  which  enters  into  the 
supremest  mental  comprehension  of  the 
sage  and  the  saint.  In  its  cruder  and  more 
material  beginnings  this  basic  instinct  of 
man  is  ofttimes  unlovely  and  repulsive, 
and  yet  even  'here  it  is  a  vital  necessity  of 
existence.  But  for  this  instinctive  impulse 


4-8  LIFE 

the  infant  would  not  desire  and  could  not 
appropriate  it's  mother's  milk;  the  child 
would  not  seek  to  acquire;  to  know;  and 
the  man,  if  indeed  it  were  possible  for  man 
to  possess  or  to  prolong  an  existence,  hav- 
ing no  desire  to  go  forward,  would  forever 
remain  a  savage  and  brute.  No;  man  can 
never  still  the  promptings  of  the  Infinite 
Soul  within  for  larger  liberty  and  greater 
light.  And  it  is  well  that  he  cannot,  for  this 
common  instinct  is  the  motive  power  be- 
hind all  advance  from  the  atom  to  the  angel. 
And  this  desire,  spite  of  the  groveling  char- 
acter of  an  animal  existence,  in  obedience 
to  a  law  of  the  Creator  implanted  in  the 
very  heart  of  man,  is  forcing  the  race  up- 
ward and  onward  in  its  journey  toward  its 
final  and  glorious  destiny.  Hope  of  Im- 
provement! Desire  to  Advance!  This  will 
never  come  to  an  end,  either  in  this  world 
or  in  any  that  may  follow.  It  is  a  law  of 
nature,  and  of  God. 

Thus,  necessarily,  the  life    we    lead    be- 
comes a  struggle,  a  fight  we  cannot  refuse. 


LIFE  49 

And  this,  being  a  rule  of  our  lives  and  a 
law  of  nature,  is  in  harmony  with  all  other 
rules  and  laws  of  nature.  In  every  depart- 
ment motion  is  the  law  of  life ;  when  motion 
ceases  life  is  at  an  end.  Stagnation  means 
decay  and  death.  Morally  and  mentally, 
too,  the  moment  we  cease  to  advance,  that 
moment  we  begin  to  recede,  to  lose  what- 
ever has  been  previously  gained,  to  fall 
back  in  the  struggle.  The  stream  of  time 
must  be  constantly  breasted  with  resolute 
stroke.  If  but  for  a  moment  we  cease  our 
struggle  with  the  tide  of  things,  instantly 
we  are  carried  down  the  river,  mere  drift 
upon  the  current. 

!My  figure  of  the  stream  does  not  fully 
express  the  truth,  for  in  spite  of  our  re- 
luctance to  admit  it,  the  struggle  for  the 
realization  of  our  hopes  must  be  mainly 
waged  with  our  fellows  for  the  sufficient 
reason  that  we  are  totally  unable  to 
measure  our  advance  or  to  gauge  o'ur  pos- 
sessions, either  mental  or  material,  save  by 
comparison  with  the  attainments  of  others 


50  LIFE 

about  us.  If  consciously  inferior  to  them 
the  normal  man,  the  right  intentioned  man, 
is  minded  to  improve;  is  forced  by  a  law  of 
his  nature  to  strive  to  equal  or  surpass  that 
which  is  seen  to  be  superior,  and  the  pres- 
ence of  the  superior  man  is  the  divinely  or- 
dered stimulus  to  exertion  without  which 
advance  is  impossible.  Thus  and  thus  only 
has  man  made  headway  in  the  past.  Indeed 
the  presence  and  the  example  of  the 
superior  is  all  that  prevents  him  from  re- 
lapsing into  the  unintelligent  savagery 
from  whence  he  sprang.  Carried  to  excess 
rivalry,  like  every  other  beneficent  thing, 
becomes  productive  of  evil.  Good  things 
in  their  normal  and  proper  relations  always 
become  harmful  if  in  excess  or  if  taken  out 
of  their  proper  relations,  but  they  do  not 
thereby  become  inherently  evil.  Fire  and 
water  are  capable  of  almost  infinite  destruc- 
tion but  they  are  not  therefore  of  them- 
selves evil.  The  struggle  with  our  fellows 
in  all  the  affairs  of  life  is  not  only  unescap- 
able  but  properly  regarded  and  directed  is 


LIFE  31 

seen  to  be  the  motive  power  in  that  splendid 
advance  man  is  making  from  savagery,  and 
perhaps  from  still  lower  conditions,  on- 
ward and  upward  toward  that  bourne  of 
unknown  perfection  which  the  future  may 
hold  in  store.  And  the  necessity  is  upon 
us.  One  must  bear  his  part  as  a  good 
soldier  in  the  conflict.  Let  each  accept  his 
place.  If  it  be  hammer  let  him  strike;  if  it 
be  anvil  let  him  bear  the  brunt  as  best  he 
may.  In  whatever  position  we  are  called  to 
stand  let  us  take  it  and  hold  it  against  the 
world  and  to  the  end.  And  amid  the  tur- 
moil of  things  by  which  we  are  surrounded, 
the  dust  and  sweat  and  oaths  of  battle,  and 
fear  of  possible  loss,  hope  of  future  better- 
ment is  the  white  star  that  ever  brilliantly 
shines  beyond  the  black  wreck  of  present 
distress  and  temporary  defeat. 

Contest  and  conflict  is  the  law  of  life. 
The  apostle  tells  us  that  our  life  is  a  war- 
fare, and  he  speaks  the  truth.  We  all  know 
men  well  qualified  by  acquired  knowledge 
and  well  appointed,  as  it  would  appear,  for 


52  LIFE 

the  work  of  the  world  who  yet  utterly  fail 
simply  because  the  combative  element  is 
lacking.  They  do  not,  will  not,  or  cannot, 
force  their  knowledge  into  effect  upon 
other  men.  And  knowledge  is  useful  only 
when  brought  into  use  among  men.  It  can- 
not be  imparted  to  things. 

Take  two  men,  each  equally  qualified. 
Inspire  both  with  the  heaven-born  spirit  of 
philanthropy,  with  a  sincere  desire  to  ben- 
efit their  kind.  Give  one  a  combative,  will- 
ful disposition.  Let  the  other  possess  all 
the  loveliness  of  disposition  which  we  may 
suppose  characterizes  the  angels;  let  him 
have  a  disclination  to  offend  and  a  willing- 
ness to  be  turned  aside  from  his  chosen 
methods  by  appeals  made  to  his  good 
nature;  then  note  the  result;  and  the  dif- 
ference. The  first  will  impress  himself  and 
his  methods  upon  men,  largely,  at  the  time, 
against  their  will.  This  man  will  end  by 
becoming  a  benefactor.  The  other  will 
weakly  wish  well  to  all,  but  not  having  the 
stomach  for  a  fight,  not  wishing  to  oppose 


LIFE  53 

and  destroy  the  plans  of  men  who  stand  in 
his  way,  will  really  do  nothing  of  value,  an'd 
end  in  being — if  he  lives  long  enough — 
simply  an  object  of  pity. 

With  the  first  the  star  of  hope  is  the  ac- 
complishment of  his  design.  This  holds 
his  thought.  The  other  is  turned  aside  out 
of  regard  for  men  to  whom  he  should  listen 
only  that  he  may  confound  and  defeat 
them.  He  loses  sight  of  future  betterment 
by  deferring  to  those  whom  he  should 
fight. 

So  much  is  contest  and  conflict  the  law 
of  our  nature  that  one  does  not  need  to 
invade  the  region  of  hyperbole  to  say  that 
it  is  nearly  all  of  life  to  us.  You  listen 
to  a  famous  man  only  to  compare  him 
favorably  or  unfavorably  with  what  has 
gone  before.  A  contest  is  thus  instituted 
in  the  mind;  indeed  we  can  acquire  knowl- 
edge in  no  other  way  than  by  a  comparison 
of  thoughts  and  in  the  conflict  of  ideas 
thus  instituted.  The  prima  donna  pleases 
you  only  if  she  excel  some  other  singer.  If 


54  LIFE 

she  fall  below  you  vote  your  attendance  at 
the  opera  a  mere  waste  of  time.  You 
watch  with  intense  interest  the  horses  at 
the  race  track.  Who  can  tell  the  cause 
of  your  interest  in  the  triumph  of  the 
black  over  the  gray?  You  do  not  even 
know  yourself  why  you  thrilled  and 
shouted  at  the  success  of  the  colt  you  had 
never  seen  until  he  came  around  the  turn 
bravely  struggling  with  every  nerve  em- 
ployed in  the  effort  to  win  a  victory.  You 
cheered  because  your  nature  bade  you 
cheer,  and  because  in  every  form  of  conflict 
we  see  ourselves  as  possible  contestants. 
Should  two  dogs  engage  in  a  fight  there  is 
something  wrong  in  the  makeup  of  the 
man  who  does  not  exult  in  the  victory  of 
what  appears  the  weaker  party.  And  should 
the  smaller,  the  under  dog  in  the  fight,  after 
dogfully  doing  his  best,  seem  to  lack  a  fair 
chance  for  his  life,  I  have  little  love  for  the 
onlooker  who  will  not  interfere  to  save  a 
brave  fighter. 

But    it    is    useless    to   repeat   the    story 


LIFE  55 

known  to  all.  With  every  successful  man, 
in  whatever  field  engaged,  life  is  divided, 
it  has  been  well  said,  into  three  parts;  each 
a  conflict.  The  first  third  is  spent  in 
struggling;  the  second  in  obtaining  a  foot- 
hold; and  the  last  third  in  defending  what 
has  been  gained;  and  every  step  of  the  long 
and  toilsome  way  has  been  taken  with  hope 
as  the  incentive  and  mainspring  of  action. 

Every  act  of  man  is  first  conceived  in  his 
mind.  It  there  first  takes  form.  The 
thought  of  to-day  becomes  the  act  of  to- 
morrow. Thus  the  thoughts  of  men  are 
matters  of  chief  importance.  "  As  a  man 
thinketh  so  is  he."  And  thought  is  wonder- 
fully contagious.  Smallpox  is  a  fearful 
disease.  One  does  not  knowingly  en- 
counter it  for  fear  of  contagion.  But  the 
prospect  of  infection  from  this  source  is  as 
nothing  compared  to  that  experienced  by 
those  who  come  in  contact  with  new  ideas. 
Let  a  new  thought  be  brought  into  exist- 
ence; let  it  be  true,  or,  at  least,  have  its  base 
in  truth;  let  it  be  one  that  has  to  do  with 


56  LIFE 

the  daily  life  of  man,  let  it  open  before  his 
vision  a  brighter  prospect,  and  give  him 
more  of  hope,  and  almost  in  a  day  as  it 
were  the  world  is  infected  and  all  things 
are  henceforth  changed  in  their  relations. 
Immediately,  too,  the  new  thought  begins 
to  have  its  effect  upon  the  acts  of  men  and 
everything  is  made  to  seem  uncertain. 
Every  wave  of  thought  passing  over  the 
reading,  thinking  world,  as  now  it  does  in 
a  fortnight,  produces  more  or  less  of 
change  in  the  aspect  of  things.  In  the 
light  of  new  thought  we  view  with  chang- 
ing opinion  the  daily  facts  of  life.  Let  no 
man  deceive  himselt ;  Galileo  was  right,  the 
world  does  move,  and  all  the  men  and 
women  with  it.  Let  a  new  thought,  or  a 
new  combination  of  old  ones,  infect  the 
reading  public  and  straightway  a  condition 
is  created  which  must  be  reckoned  with  in 
any  calculation  regarding  the  future.  Thus 
coming  events  cast  their  shadows  before, 
and  he  who  will  may  read  the  signs  of  the 
coming  day. 


LIFE  57 

Among  all  the  thoughts  of  man  and  con- 
ditions of  his  mind  nothing  is  so  supremely 
important  as  the  presence  in  his  mental 
constitution  of  hope,  that  anchor  of  the 
soul.  Give  a  man  firm  hope  in  the  future 
and  take  away  all  else  and  he  will  smilingly 
bide  his  time,  come  what  may,  blow  the 
winds  of  fate  against  him  never  so  strongly. 
Surround  him,  on  the  contrary,  with  every- 
thing of  beauty  and  of  value,  and  destroy 
hope  in  his  future  and  that  without  remedy 
and  you  have  left  only  a  maniac  from  whom 
reason  has  fled.  Hope  is  the  one  thing 
absolutely  essential  to  the  mind  of  man; 
its  life,  its  all.  So  powerful  is  it,  however, 
that  even  a  little  will  suffice  the  need  of 
the  time.  Man  lives  to  acquire;  to  gain  in 
some  direction.  Hope  of  this  fills  his  heart 
and  occupies  his  mind.  "  Where  his 
treasure  is  there  will  his  heart  be,  also." 
Some  small  gain,  in  one  direction  or 
another,  must  be  his.  The  scholar,  though 
steeped  in  poverty,  is  satisfied  if  able  to 
gain  in  knowledge;  the  pietist  with  ad- 


58  LIFE 

vance  in  his  peculiar  thought;  the  artist 
with  increase  of  skill,  and  the  man  of  the 
world  with  enlarging  coffers.  But  there 
must  in  all  cases  be  an  advance,  or  misery 
is  the  result.  This  is  the  law.  Increase, 
however,  need  not  be  great  but  it  must  be 
continuous.  Hope  must  have  somewhat 
upon  which  to  feed.  And  hope  is  only 
sustained  by  constant  advance.  Hope  of 
future  betterment  thus  becomes  a  constitu- 
ent part  of  the  man  himself.  The  old  lose 
interest  in  life  and  are  ready  to  die  chiefly 
because  ability  to  acquire  and  hope  of 
betterment  have  plainly  come  to  an  end. 
And  this  desire,  or  hope,  continually  ad- 
vances and  must  be  constantly  fed.  We  are 
often  amazed  at  the  conduct  of  men  who, 
though  excessively  wealthy,  still  grasp  for 
greater  riches.  We  need  not  be.  They  only 
obey  a  law  of  nature  which  cannot  be 
evaded  without  penalty.  For  if  a  man  who 
having  formed  character  as  a  wealth  getter 
ceases  to  acquire  and  "  retires  "  he  is  mis- 
erable. Usually  he  does  not  live  long.  The 


LIFE  59 

demands  of  his  nature  cannot  be  met.  And 
this  demand,  coming  from  the  vital  part  of 
man,  must  be  reckoned  with.  It  cannot  be 
ignored.  It  affects  men  by  making  them 
desirous  of  acquiring  something.  What 
that  something  may  be  depends  upon  the 
peculiar  constitution  of  the  particular  man. 
But  he  must  acquire  something.  It  may  be 
either  wealth,  honor,  skill,  power,  glory,  or 
what  not,  but  an  advance  must  be  made.  If 
these  considerations  do  not  move  a  man  we 
say  that  he  is  deranged  or  insane,  and  we 
speak  the  truth  because  he  is  of  unsound 
mind,  that  is,  his  mind  is  seen  to  be  abnor- 
mal or  unnatural.  This  being  the  case  if 
from  any  cause  it  becomes  impossible  for 
men  to  satisfy  the  natural  desires  of  the 
mind  they  are  rendered  insane  to  the  de- 
gree in  which  hope  is  shut  off.  If  hope  is 
absolutely  and  entirely  destroyed  the  man 
is  absolutely  and  entirely  insane,  as  any 
standard  authority  in  this  matter  will  show 
us.  Hope  in  the  future  is  as  essential  to 
man  as  the  air  he  breathes.  He  will  do  as 


60  LIFE 

well  without  the  one  as  the  other.  Woe 
unto  him  whose  plans  of  self-aggrandize- 
ment include  the  destruction  of  the  hope  of 
future  acquisition  and  betterment  in  the 
hearts  of  the  great  plain  people.  Let  him 
have  a  care,  for  if  he  succeeds  he  will  have 
a  nation  of  madmen  upon  his  hands  who, 
when  their  time  is  come,  will  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  his  pitiful  plea  for  mercy. 

But  hope,  notwithstanding  its  impor- 
tance and  its  essential  value,  may  lead  us 
astray.  Too  much  of  hope  paralyzes  the 
will  and  destroys  that  set  resolution  upon 
which  courage  and  character  wait.  One 
must  know  himself.  And  yet  to  thorough- 
ly accomplish  this  he  must  also  know  other 
men.  "  There  is  nothing  common  to  man," 
said  the  great  Goethe,  "  that  is  foreign  to 
me."  We  can  only  know  other  men  by 
knowing  ourselves,  and,  as  truly,  we  can 
only  really  know  ourselves  by  knowing 
other  men.  The  fool  is  he  who  refuses  to 
learn  from  the  experiences  of  ethers.  For 
this  is  the  chief  point  of  difference  between 


LIFE  61 

the  wise  and  the  unwise.  One  is  ready  to 
believe  that  fire  will  burn  and  water  drown 
from  noting  the  effects  of  these  agents 
upon  other  men.  The  fool  will  put  no  faith 
in  the  power  of  the  hangman's  rope  to 
strangle  until  it  is  about  his  neck.  We, 
who  are  not  fools,  are  thus  able  to  see  the 
evil  effects  of  too  large  a  hope.  Perhaps 
the  most  common  example  of  this  being 
the  sorrow  which  comes  to  us  almost  with- 
out exception  when  great  hopes  are  placed 
upon  the  expected  performance  of  other 
men.  Whenever  this  is  your  case  and  all 
that  you  have  and  are  is  very  foolishly 
staked  upon  the  truth  and  loyalty  of  some 
one  whose  pecuniary  interest  is  opposed  to 
the  performance  of  his  duty  to  you,  if  he  is 
not  legally  bound  and  can  by  hook  or  crook 
and  with  an  appearance  of  so-called  honesty 
deny  your  claim  I  advise  you,  if  not  pre- 
pared to  take  the  responsibility  of  killing 
him,  to  apply  yourself  to  the  consolations 
of  religion  or  philosophy.  You  will  need 
them.  He  will  fail  you  in  your  time  of 


62  LIFE 

need.  "  Put  not  thy  trust  in  princes,  O 
Lemuel/'  said  the  wise  man,  and  he  might 
have  added,  "  The  poor  man  is  made  of  the 
same  clay  and  will  do  the  same  things." 
And  I  will  take  the  responsibility  of  saying 
that  as  the  temptations  and  necessities  of 
the  poor  are  greater,  so,  greater  will  be  his 
delinquencies  in  the  matter  of  keeping 
faith.  The  Christ  selected  twelve  men  to 
help  him  reform  the  world,  and  at  the  time 
of  his  greatest  need  they  all  forsook  him 
and  fled.  The  braggart  among  them  denied 
him  with  an  oath  and  the  avaricious  man 
sold  him  for  so  much  money  in  hand  well 
and  truly  paid.  And  this  is  a  fair  sample 
of  the  doings  of  average  men  under  like 
conditions.  We,  who  are  not  fools,  may 
learn  from  this  past  experience  how  to  re- 
gard the  future.  Men  of  to-day  come  later 
in  time  it  is  true  but  they  are  of  the  same 
blood  and  like  their  kith  and  kin  of  a 
former  day  are  certain  to  disappoint  a  too 
fervent  anticipation.  It  is  true  that  eleven 
of  these  men  afterward  repented  and 


LIFE  63 

brought  forth  fruits  meet  for  repentance; 
but  this  was  after  the  Man  of  Sorrows  had 
met  his  fate,  alone,  upon  the  tree.  So,  it  is 
barely  possible,  after  your  death  some  one 
may  mourn  and  the  "  storied  urn  "  show 
forth  the  ability  of  the  story-teller  to — dis- 
guise his  thoughts.  How  a  future  monu- 
ment may  help  you  in  this  present  to  fight 
the  battle  of  life  remains  for  some  one  else 
to  relate. 

Uncertain  and  problematical  as  it  may  be 
with  the  few,  hope  placed  in  the  following 
by  tire  general  public  of  a  certain  and  par- 
ticular course  is  seen,  usually,  to  be  the 
merest  delusion.  They  tell  us  in  France  it 
is  the  unexpected  that  happens.  "  Blessed 
is  the  man  who  expects  nothing,  for  that's 
what  he'll  get."  When  we  can  induce  citi- 
zens to  turn  the  cold  shoulder  to  the  agree- 
able scamp  who  wanting  their  votes  does 
them  a  favor,  flatters  them,  lends  them 
small  sums  of  money  and  withal  has  such 
a  nice  way  with  him,  and,  instead,  vote  for 
the  best  man  for  the  office,  even  though  he 


64  LIFE 

does  not  belong  to  their  party;  then,  we 
shall  be  justified  in  building  great  hopes 
upon  the  political  action  of  the  general 
public.  Until  that  time  comes,  however, 
we  shall  be  obliged  to  stub  along  much  as 
we  have  in  the  past.  The  longer  one  lives 
the  more  he  should  be  able  to  find  out. 

Looking  out  my  window  upon  the 
crowded  street  a  day  or  two  before  Christ- 
mas I  saw  among  the  throng  upon  the  side- 
walk a  pale,  thinly  dressed  woman  leading 
by  the  hand  a  bright-faced  boy  of  four  or 
five  years  of  age.  Mother  and  son  they 
were,  evidently.  Poverty  was  written  all 
over  them,  though  both  were  neat  and 
clean.  A  ribbon  at  the  woman's  throat  and 
the  boy's  new  cap  showed  an  attempt  to 
make  the  best  of  things  that  touched  my 
heart.  The  streets  were  crowded  with 
happy  people  and  the  shop  windows  filled 
with  an  attractive  display.  What  a  para- 
dise of  enjoyment,  held  like  the  joys  of 
Tantalus,  before  the  eyes  of  the  child. 
From  appearances  they  had  walked  in 


LIFE  6s 

from  the  country,  for  the  little  fellow 
seemed  tired  though  he  held  tightly  to  his 
mother's  hand  looking  up  in  her  care-worn 
face  from  time  to  time  with  an  eager  ques- 
tioning gaze.  Evidently  he  knew,  although 
so  young,  that  the  pretty  things  were  not 
for  him.  They  could  not  buy.  Ah!  The 
story  told  by  the  faces  and  attitudes  of 
those  two.  And  what  of  the  future  of  that 
boy?  Is  he  always  to  be  denied?  What  of 
the  man  who  succeeds  him,  and  what  of  his 
future?  Friend,  the  saddest  thought  in  life 
is  of  the  children  of  the  poor  deprived  of 
hope. 

In  the  book  of  Genesis  we  read  of  the 
destruction  of  the  world  by  a  great  deluge. 
After  a  time,  we  are  told,  the  flood  of  waters 
began  to  be  assuaged.  The  patriarch  Noah 
wishing,  after  the  storm  and  stress  of  the 
great  catastrophe  were  over,  to  learn  if  the 
waters  were  abating,  sent  out  from  the 
window  of  the  ark  a  raven  and  a  dove.  The 
raven  returned  to  him  not  again,  but  as  the 
dove  found  no  rest  for  the  sole  of  her  foot 


66  LIFE 

she  came  again  to  him  and  he  put  forth  his 
hand  and  took  her  into  the  ark.  "  And  he 
stayed  yet  other  seven  days;  and  again  he 
sent  forth  the  dove  out  of  the  ark.  And  the 
dove  came  in  to  him  in  the  evening,  and  lo 
in  her  mouth  was  an  olive  leaf  plucked  off; 
so  Noah  knew  that  the  waters  were  abated 
from  off  the  earth." 

Thus  is  it  with  man  after  the  heyday  of 
youth  is  past  and  the  rush  and  conflict  of 
life  have  somewhat  spent  their  force.  He 
begins  to  question  and  inquire  regarding 
the  mystery  of  existence.  Is  there  in  all  the 
wild  waste  of  things  surrounding  him  solid 
ground  upon  which  hope  may  rest  and  be 
at  peace.  From  the  windows  of  his  soul  go 
out  the  raven  and  the  dove.  Thoughts 
gloomy  and  black  with  despair  flit  across 
his  mental  vision  and  with  'hem,  ttfo,  go 
the  mild  and  gentle  radiance  of  the  spirit  of 
peace  and  hope.  The  sable  plumage  and 
hoarse  croak  of  the  raven  of  doubt  and 
denial  return  to  him  no  message  of  cheer 
and  even  the  dove  of  hope  can  find  no  rest 


LIFE  67 

for  the  sole  of  her  foot,  but  faithful  to  her 
trust  she  returns  to  cheer  by  her  presence 
his  lonely  vigils.  After  a  time  of  weary 
waiting  again  he  sends  'her  forth  and  again 
she  returns  bringing  as  a  token  of  deliver- 
ance near  at  hand  the  olive  branch  of  peace. 
The  sincere  questioner  need  not  long 
despair,  somewhere,  not  far  away,  in  this 
present  world,  and  within  reach  of  all,  an 
answer  may  be  found.  Amid  the  wreck 
and  ruin  of  things  which  we  see  upon  every 
hand  solid  ground  can  yet  be  reached  upon 
which  hope  may  rest  and  be  content.  If 
one  do  thoroughly  know  himself;  if  he  can 
look  within  his  inmost  heart  and  see  there 
a  great  and  honorable  purpose  pure  and 
uncontaminated  by  its  fleshly  environment 
he  can  depend  upon,  'he  can  hope  in  himself 
and  never  be  ashamed!  Thus  supported 
men  of  every  age  and  'time,  of  all  religions, 
and  of  none,  have  been  consciously  upheld 
and  superbly  maintained  in  the  face  of  dire 
disaster  and  of  death  itself.  The  captive 
soldier  called  to  die  for  his  country  at 


68  LIFE 

break  of  day  in  the  cool  and  stilly  dawn 
faces  the  firing  squad  with  unflinching 
fortitude,  his  dependence  the  innate  deity 
within.  Socrates,  drinking  the  hemlock; 
Regulus  the  proud  Roman  before  his  Car- 
thaginian executioners;  Joan  of  Arc  amid 
the  flames  of  Rouen,  with  countless  throngs 
of  lesser  and  unknown  men  and  women, 
were  citizens  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hope.  In 
its  realms  they  live  to-day. 

One  of  the  grandest  and  most  assuring 
thoughts  permitted  to  mortal  man  is  that 
of  his  own  absolute  freedom  and  complete 
supremacy!  No  power,  save  that  of  our 
own  will,  can  injure  or  destroy  us!  The 
Ego  within  is  the  man;  the  body  but  its 
minister.  No  mortal  hand  can  touch  this, 
save  by  our  leave.  Epictetus  the  slave  and 
Marcus  Aurelius  the  Emperor  make  clear 
the  fact  that  circumstances  may  be  ignored, 
never  binding  for  long  the  self-centered 
and  self-reliant  mind  of  man. 

Would  you  feel  yourself  entirely  free,  and 
absolutely  safe?  Have,  then,  some  great 


LIFE  69 

object  in  life;  some  great  hope.  Live  for  it 
and  if  necessary  die  for  it.  I  pity  the  man 
who  does  not  feel  within  his  inmost  soul 
that  in  support  of  a  great  right,  if  dire 
necessity  were  laid  upon  him,  a  necessity 
which  he  could  not  'honorably  escape,  he, 
too,  could  without  a  quiver  face  the  deadly 
platoon  of  rifles  drawn  up  to  take  his  life. 
No  man  of  sense  courts  such  an  end  and 
yet  I  like  to  believe  that  there  are  as  many 
to-day  as  the  long  and  eventful  past  can 
show  who  stand  ready,  now,  to  risk  all  in 
support  of  imperiled  truth! 

Be  a  citizen  of  the  Kingdom  of  Hope. 
Know  yourself  for  what  you  are.  Live  for 
a  great  object  and  the  peace  that  passeth 
understanding  shall  be  yours. 


THE  LAW  OF  ADVANCE  AND  THE 
GOSPEL  OF  WORK. 


profoundest  fact  which  can  be 
brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
student  and  the  scholar  is  the  law 
of  advance  immanent  in  man.  Man  has 
risen  from  the  cave-dweller,  the  savage 
and  the  barbarian  to  the  plane  of  the 
present.  To  the  future  progress  of  the 
race,  assured  by  this  law,  no  limit  appears. 
Man's  wagon  is  hitched  to  a  star!  The 
first  written  law  of  Nature,  or  of  God, 
is  the  Law  of  Labor.  The  first  com- 
mandment is  not:  "Thou  shalt  have  no 
other  Gods  before  Me."  Twenty-five 
hundred  years  before  Moses  and  his  tables 
of  stone,  according  to  the  chronology  of  the 
Bible,  it  was  said:  "  In  the  sweat  of  thy 


LIFE  77 

face  shalt  thou  eat  bread,  till  thou  return 
unto  the  ground ;  for  dust  thou  art  and  unto 
dust  shalt  thou  return."  The  most  im- 
portant fact,  to  him  who  would  know  the 
reason  of  things  is  the  law  of  advance.  The 
most  pressing  and  imperative  duty  imposed 
upon  all  men  everywhere  is  the  law  of 
labor.  " 

Man,  in  the  mass,  has  slowly  risen  in  the 
mental  and  moral  scale.  Individuals,  and 
nations,  may  perish,  and  have  perished;  for 
a  time  retrogression  may  hold  sway  and  a 
seeming  loss  occur  but  as  with  the  succes- 
sive waves  upon  the  seashore  the  tide  rises. 
Though  'some  may  appear  to  recede,  suc- 
ceeding waves  rise  higher  and  yet  higher. 
The  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men  has  risen  and 
will  rise  in  the  future.  The  broad  ocean  of 
future  life  upon  this  planet  will  float  men 
easily  and  securely  over  the  jagged  rocks 
which  now  bar  their  advance  and  chill  with 
paralyzing  fear  their  aspirations.  The 
future  belongs  to  the  youth  of  to-day. 

In  every  nation  history  and  tradition  run 


72  LIFE 

back  to  days  of  savagery.  And  if  we  go 
still  farther  than  history  or  tradition  can 
carry  us  the  story  of  the  rocks  repeats  the 
same  tale  with  added  force.  Prehistoric 
man  was  an  animal;  the  fragmentary  re- 
mains of  the  cave-dwellers  of  a  remote 
past  revealing,  we  are  told,  depths  of  sav- 
agery which  can  be  only  dimly  compre- 
hended by  us.  So,  take  it  all  in  all  the 
scholarship  of  our  time  seems  agreed  in 
this;  humankind,  the  race,  the  average  man, 
has  slowly  advanced  mentally  and  morally. 
But  progress  while  in  the  long  run  sure  has 
not  been  uninterrupted — time  appearing  a 
matter  of  no  moment.  When  we  take  into 
consideration  the  facts  and  surroundings, 
that  man  has  risen  at  all  is  a  wonder;  that 
he  has  steadily  and  continuously  risen; 
seemingly  as  the  result  of  a  purpose,  is 
amazing;  that  he  has  risen  in  opposition  to 
his  natural  instincts,  to  the  evident  drift  of 
his  surroundings  and  the  still  greater 
hindrances  of  his  own  ignorance,  weakness 
and  the  groveling  and  debasing  character 


LIFE  73 

of  his  animal  inheritance  is  a  fact  astound- 
ing in  its  importance  because  of  the  light 
thus  cast  upon  his  future. 

Back  of  man's  advance  we  have,  then,  a 
force  superior  to  his  own  will.  For  it  is 
evident  to  the  most  casual  observer  that  it 
was  not  in  his  mind  that  results  first  took 
form.  The  mariner's  compass  first  came 
into  use  as  an  aid  to  robbery,  outrage  and 
murder,  mere  piracy  in  fact.  Gunpowder, 
stumbled  upon  at  first,  as  a  chemical  curios- 
ity in  the  alchemist's  search  for  the  univer- 
sal flux  which  should  turn  all  to  gold,  later 
took  its  place  as  a  simple  and  economical 
aid  in  the  matter  of  murder.  Nobody  tfien 
saw  what  was  to  come  from  its  use.  Least 
of  all  did  its  users  intend  man's  advance. 
It  was  used  to  stay  that  advance — to  kill. 
The  printing  press  resulted  from  the  efforts 
of  certain  German  artisan:  to  copy  books 
and  get  gain  somewhat  faster  than  certain 
other  copyists.  The  inventor  who  is  not 
moved  by  hope  of  gain  is  carried  forward 
by  the  peculiar  constitution  of  his  mind,  by 


7#  LIFE 

the  power  which  made  him  what  he  is.  Ask 
him;  he  will  tell  you  that  certain  problems 
force  themselves  upon  his  attention.  Do 
what  he  will  he  canndt  escape  them.  He 
did  not  create  his  mind  any  more  than  he 
did  his  body  or  his  life. 

Advance  has  constantly  been  made  and 
yet  so  far  as  we  can  see  the  masses  of  men 
have  done  what  they  could  to  prevent  it. 
Given  the  opportunity  they  chose  Barabbas 
and  condemned  the  Christ,  as  they  always 
have  done  whenever  a  like  opportunity  pre- 
sented itself.  The  fittest  morally  has  never 
survived.  The  strongest  battalions  held 
the  field.  And  men  have  always  endorsed 
this  brutal  verdict.  Shakespere  name's 
Caesar  as  "  The  greatest  man  of  all  this 
world  "  largely,  perhaps,  because  he  may 
have  been  the  greatest  murderer,  having 
assisted,  it  is  said,  in  destroying  three 
millions  of  human  lives,  accompanied  in 
many  instances,  with  revolting  outrage  of 
the  most  fiendish  description.  But  such 
men  have  been  chiefly  honored  and  pat- 


LIFE  75 

terned  after.  These  have  survived  while 
the  good,  the  true  and  the  faithful  have 
been  despitefully  used  and  put  to  shame. 
And  this  has  always  been  the  case,  if  the 
truth  they  taught  has  been  new  enough 
and  true  enough  to  arouse  the  natural 
ferocity  of  man.  For  nothing  have  men  so 
great  and  abiding  hate  and  opposition  as 
for  a  new  truth  leading  to  the  greater  free- 
dom of  men  from  whose  toil  and  tears  they 
profit.  Against  advance  of  this  kind  the 
controllers  and  managers  of  men  have  al- 
ways fought,  and  will  fight.  And  even 
those  to  be  benefited  do  not,  and  will  not, 
aid.  No  greater  miracle  ever  passed  before 
the  eyes  of  man  than  that  under  these  cir- 
cumstances continuous  moral  advance 
should  take  place.  In  all  the  doings  of  men 
in  a  large  and  general  way  and  in  all  the 
so-called  laws  of  nature,  honor,  morality 
and  decency,  as  we  understand  these  things, 
have  no  place  and  no  existence  whatever. 
The  survival  of  the  fittest  to  withstand  rude, 
hard  and  morally  revolting  conditions  has 


76  LIFE 

been  the  rule.  The  plant  that  crowded 
other  plants  out  of  existence  has  lived  and 
received  its  nourishment,  largely,  from  the 
decay  of  its  former  rivals.  The  animal  that 
secured  the  most  of  the  mutually  acquired 
booty,  thus  depriving  other  individuals  of 
its  race  to  the  greatest  extent,  generally  to 
the  extent  of  its  ability,  has  become  the 
largest,  the  .strongest  and  the  progenitor  of 
the  future  herd.  Hardier  and  more  force- 
ful races  of  men  have  in  like  manner  oc- 
cupied the  ground.  We  can  see  that  this 
has  been  the  way  of  the  world  and  the  habit 
of  man,  in  a  large  and  general  way  without 
exception.  Selfishness  and  violence  have 
ruled  all  large  aggregations  of  men  to  the 
utter  exclusion  of  what  are  known  as  the 
higher  motives.  For  betterments  which  at 
the  time  seemed  far  in  the  future,  when 
placed  in  opposition  to  present  profit,  no 
government,  no  large  body  of  men,  ever 
yet  declared.  Religion,  moral  precepts, 
truth,  and  even  what  has  been  called  "  com- 
mon "  honesty,  all  have  been  totally  insuf- 


LIFE  77 

ficient  to  prevent  the  commission  by 
nations  of  the  grossest  crimes  when  in  pur- 
suit of  gain.  No  nation  ever  yet  refrained 
from  profitable  "  business  "  because  it  had 
been  proved  morally  wrong.  Not  till  it  be- 
came unprofitable  was  it  discovered  by  the 
nation  to  be  wrong.  Or,  if  forced  to 
change  the  source  of  this  came  from  with- 
out. Chattel  slavery,  as  a  comparatively  re- 
cent instance,  perished  not  because  men  in- 
tended to  abolish  it  but  because  they  did 
not,  and  would  not,  and  in  opposition  to 
the  combined  efforts  of  a  great  people  to 
preserve  it.  The  South  began  the  war  to 
save  it,  and  the  first  act  of  the  separated 
North  was  by  solemn  resolution  of  Con- 
gress to  provide,  promise  and  declare  that 
if  the  seceders  would  only  return,  the  evil, 
where  it  existed,  should  be  preserved  and 
perpetuated.  And  yet  in  another  century 
the  "  fictions  agreed  upon  "  will  doubtless 
tell  a  very  different  tale.  Of  late  we  have 
heard  much  of  the  boast  of  a  political  party 
that  it  abolished  slavery.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  and  record  it  enacted  its  perpetuity. 


78  LIFE 

The  simple  truth  is  that  man  is  totally 
ignorant  of  the  hidden  springs  and  sources 
from  whence  come  the  impulses  that  impel 
him  to  the  course  he  pursues.  These  im- 
pulses make  the  man,  they  control  him; 
they  are  the  man  himself;  but  of  their 
origin  who  can  tell?  Long  after  a  man  is 
able  to  bring  himself  into  the  world  and 
fashion  a  body  to  his  liking  he  will  still  be 
powerless  to  construct  a  soul  to  inhabit 
the  tenement  thus  created.  "  Man  make 
himself!"  "  Every  man  his  own  Creator!" 
What  nonsense!  He  comes  into  the  world 
protesting  with  all  his  puny  might  against 
the  fate  which  thus  thrusts  life  upon  him 
and  he  leaves  it  against  his  will  and  only 
because  he  must. 

The  law  of  advance  which  forces  man  in 
the  mass  to  go  forward  is  the  most  stupen- 
dous fact  that  can  occupy  the  attention  of 
thoughtful  men.  Individuals  may  perish, 
may  fail,  may  become  mere  dust  in  the 
balance  of  time,  but  the  race  will  go  for- 
ward, is  finally,  in  the  far  eons  of  the  future 


LIFE  79 

to  become  the  arbiter  of  its  own  destiny. 
But  all  is  not  yet  plain  sailing. 

•There  is  a  beautiful  story  by  the  famous 
Doctor   Johnson,  which    if   you    have    not 
read  I  advise  you  to  procure  and  read.    It  \ 
is  entitled :     "  Rasselas  or  the  Happy  Val- 
ley."    I  have  not  read  it  for  years  myself. 
My  copy  is  lost,  has  been  stolen,  or  bor- 
rowed— which    may    be    much    the    same 
thing.    I  remember,  however,  very  well  the  i 
lesson  taught,  and  taught  very  beautifully, . 
too.     It  is  the  futility  of  human  hopes  and 
wishes.    Rasselas  was  an  imaginary  Prince  ; 
of  Abyssinia  who  became  the  possessor  of, 
all  that  his  eyes  could  perceive  or  his  heart 
desire.     And  yet  he  was  most  miserable. 
The  story  is  told  in  such  a  way  that  we  are 
forced  to  see,  as  in  a  mirror,  our  own  eager, 
longing,  wistful  selves.     To  see,  too,  that 
the  day  which  beholds  us  in  full  possession 
of  all  upon  which  we  have  set  our  hearts 
closes  upon  us  the  door  of  hope  and  happi- 
ness.   It  is  a  lesson  which  each  must  learn 
for  himself.    And  yet  it  is  a  lesson  which  no 


8o  LIFE 

one  ever  fully  realizes.  To  his  latest  day 
man  successfully  deceives  himself.  That  it 
is  better  farther  on  we  are  convinced.  That 
the  future  has  much  of  good  laid  up  for  us 
we  all  believe.  And  it  is  well  that  it  is  so, 
even  though  at  last  we  are  forced  to  say 
with  the  preacher:  "  Vanity  of  vanities  all 
is  vanity."  For  when  hope  is  dead  the  man 
has  ceased  to  be. 

The  pursuit  of  happiness  is  thus  the 
natural  and  therefore  reasonable  and  proper 
occupation  of  men.  Indeed  I  presume  no 
thoughtful  person  will  for  a  moment  ques- 
tion the  fact  that  all  men  do  seek  happiness, 
in  one  way  or  another.  Some,  it  is  true, 
do  this  in  ways  which  to  us  appear  short 
sighted,  foolish  or  wicked,  and  yet  if  we 
examine  closely  we  shall  see  that  the  thief 
steals  with  the  insane  desire  of  adding 
to  the  sum  of  his  future  enjoyment.  So, 
too,  with  the  self-denying  enthusiast,  he 
also  desires  to  lay  up  treasure — somewhere. 

Hope  of  improvement,  in  some  direc- 
tion, thus  becomes  the  very  base  and  foun- 


LIFE  8 1 

dation  stone  of  all  healthful  mental  life. 
And  every  man  lives  in  his  thoughts.  In- 
deed, I  will  go  farther  and  say  that  every 
animal  lives  also  in  its  thoughts  and  hopes. 
Destroy  all  hope  of  the  future  in  your  horse 
or  your  dog  and  as  a  horse  or  as  a  dog 
these  animals  have  ceased  to  be  valuable, 
either  to  you  or  to  themselves. 

Man  lives  to  acquire.  Something  more 
he  must  have.  Gradual,  even  though  slow, 
betterment  of  condition  is  the  unvarying 
and  absolute  demand  of  his  nature.  This 
must  be  met  or  harm  results.  Nothing 
takes  the  place  of  it  with  any  man.  Hope 
must  live  within.  Destroy  this  and  the 
man  has  lost  all  reason  for  existence. 
Liberty  first,  then  opportunity  for  further 
gain.  This  is  the  law.  No  matter  what 
place  the  reasonable  man  may  occupy  in 
the  mental  or  social  scale  liberty  and  op- 
portunity satisfy  and  content  him  with  his 
surroundings.  Unparalled  hardships  only 
serve  to  make  the  successful  gold  hunter 
hilarious.  Hope  buoys  him  up.  Life  and 


82  LIFE 

an  opportunity  to  acquire!  This  it  is  to 
live!  And  this  suffices  for  us  all.  The 
peasant  who  by  the  severest  toil  is  slowly 
increasing  his  little  store  is  the  sure  support 
of  that  government,  whatever  its  form, 
which  assures  him  his  small  opportunity. 
And  such  support  as  his  is  the  only  sure 
reliance  of  government  in  any  age  or  time. 
Founded  upon  anything  else  it  is  sure  to 
fall.  The  scholar  will  content  himself  so 
long  as  knowledge  with  him  increases.  The 
merchant  is  satisfied  while  gains  continue. 
Rasselas  was  unhappy  because  acquire- 
ment had  come  to  an  end.  Alexander  wept 
for  more  worlds  to  conquer.  The  natural 
law  of  advance  deeply  implanted  in  man's 
nature  could  not  be  satisfied.  Nature  has 
ever  her  revenges  in  store.  We  cannot 
outwit  her.  The  one  essential  and  impera- 
tive condition  which  must  be  met  in  our 
treatment  of  ourselves,  and  in  the  settle- 
ment of  the  problems  of  society  is  this :  The 
law  of  advance  must  rule  with  us.  We  must 
continue  to  acquire — in  some  field.  The 


LIFE  83 

old  and  the  ignorant  lose  heart  and  interest 
in  life  principally — and  this  is  reason 
enough — because  unable  to  improve,  to  ac- 
quire. The  one  absolutely  essential  thing 
to  be  done  for  the  great  "  underworld,"  for 
suffering  humanity,  is  to  re-create  hope 
within  the  hearts  of  men.  This  can  be 
effected  in  one  way  only :  By  securing  for 
them  the  ability,  the  opportunity  to  im- 
prove, to  acquire,  to  advance.  If  this  cannot 
be  done  all  is  useless. 

The  youth,  the  scholar,  the  ambitious  be- 
ginner in  the  work  of  the  world  is  bound  by 
the  same  law.  Advance  must  continue. 
Stagnation  is  death.  When  at  last  the 
wheels  of  life  stand  still  all  is  over  and  the 
dream  is  at  an  end.  Movement  is  the  law 
of  life.  How  shall  it  continue?  Answering 
this  I  have  but  one  remedy  to  propose.  It 
is  an  old  one.1  But  very  true.  I  preach  the 
gospel  of  work. 

Work  is  the  exertion  of  physical  strength 
or  mental  effort.  A  gospel  is  a  god-spell  or 
good  story.  A  recount  of  the  advantages 


84.  LIFE 

of  work  is  a  rehearsal  cf  glad  tidings,  indeed. 
We  all  desire  to  accomplish  somewhat  in 
the  scheme  of  things.  But  a  mere  languid 
desire  to  be  of  use  in  the  world  avails  but 
little.  One  who  is  weakly  in  the  right  is  in 
the  events  of  the  day  no  match  for  him 
who,  though  in  the  wrong,  has  an  invinci- 
ble determination  to  do  evil.  For  in  the 
design  of  things  already  unfolded  in  the 
history  of  the  past  we  see  force  everywhere 
triumphant.  To  this  there  is  no  exception 
since  time  began.  But  force,  virtue,  power, 
is  not  all  of  one  order.  There  is  the  force 
physical:  Mere  brutality,  so  many  pounds 
in  weight,  a  given  measure  of  gravitation, 
the  heavier  battalions,  the  larger  guns. 
And,  too,  we  have  the  force  mental,  in- 
tellectual, moral.  Of  the  two  the  latter  is 
the  more  powerful  but  both  are  to  be 
reckoned  with  in  all  the  affairs  of  life.  For 
both  are  factors  in  the  problem.  To  suc- 
ceed in  the  battle  of  life,  for  life  is  indeed  a 
warfare,  we  must  be  supplied  with  one  or 
the  other,  or  both,  of  these.  If  we  have 


LIFE  85 

neither  our  doom  is  already  sealed  and  our 
epitaphs  may  be  written.  Force,  of  some 
kind,  always  succeeds.  No  instance  to  the 
contrary  is  upon  record,  or  ever  will  be  re- 
corded. The  eternal  laws  of  God  are  true. 
The  battle  is  to  the  swift  and  the  strong, 
unless  swiftness  and  strength  can  be  over- 
matched by  intellectual  acuteness  or  moral 
power.  And  moral  force  not  only  makes 
the  infant's  sinews  strong  as  steel  but 
possesses  that  subtle  all-pervading  power 
which  enables  its  possessor  to  enter  the 
fortress  of  the  enemy  weakening  and  deci- 
mating his  ranks.  Force,  then,  is  to  win 
in  every  struggle.  From  this  there  is  no 
escape.  To  succeed  we  must  have  greater 
force,  of  some  kind,  than  that  we  oppose. 
And  we  must  oppose.  He  who  has  no 
stomach  for  the  fight  of  life,  who  hopes  for 
some  favoring  breeze  upon  whose  wings  he 
may  be  wafted  to  a  haven  of  rest  may  as 
well  now  retire.  Further  procedure  will  be 
conducted  without  regard  to  him.  It  is  not 
enough  that  one  be  well  prepared  for 


86  LIFE 

the  work  of  life,  though  this  is  certainly 
important.  Nor  is  it  enough  that  the  well 
prepared  be  willing  to  work.  This  will  not 
suffice.  Something  more  is  needed.  It  is 
this:  An  invincible  determination  to  suc- 
ceed. Good  resolutions  never  execute- 
themselves.  Many  a  man  carefully  edu- 
cated, willing  to  do  and  followed  by  the 
good  wishes  and  the  prayers  of  kindred  and 
friends  utterly  fails  to  become  a  factor  in 
the  work  of  the  world,  and  like  a  painted 
ship  upon  a  painted  ocean  floats  idly,  si- 
lently and  uselessly  upon  the  tide  of  time. 
I  Force  is  lacking.  With  force,  of  the  right 
kind,  anything  may  be  done.  Even  so  soft 
a  thing  as  a  tallow  candle  may  be  fired 
through  a  board.  Intensity  is  a  substitute 
for  weight.  Soft  iron  made  to  revolve 
rapidly  enough  cuts  freely  the  hardest  steel. 
The  candle  must  be  trained  and  directed  in 
its  course  by  passing  through  a  long  and 
smooth  gunbarrel.  And  back  of  it  all  must 
be  the  explosive  force  of  gunpowder. 
Then  the  seemingly  impossible  happens. 


LIFE  87 

So  is  it  in  the  affairs  of  men.  Knives  are 
instruments  laboriously  made  for  cuttting 
purposes.  And  yet  no  one  ever  knew  a 
knife  to  cut  unless  force  was  used.  Of  itself 
no  knife  ever  cut  anything.  Or  ever  will. 
And  the  duller  the  knife  the  more  force  re- 
quired. So  of  men.  Most  of  us  need  a 
good  deal  of  pushing.  Some  of  us  are  so 
soft  that  as  in  the  case  of  the  tallow  candle 
an  explosion  of  some  kind  is  absolutely 
necessary  before  we  can  be  made  to  see  the 
point. 

Education  is  well,  preparation  is  much, 
but  more  important  still  is  the  forceful  will 
which  without  regard  to  obstacles  pushes 
straight  on  toward  the  goal. 

The  law  of  advance  compels  men  to  im- 
prove, to  acquire,  or  to  suffer.  By  work 
we  improve,  we  acquire  and  we  prevent 
that  sorrow  and  suffering  which  lack  of  ad- 
vance is  sure  to  bring.  Thus  is  summed 
up  the  true  business  of  life.  But  work  must 
be  properly  directed.  Strong  men,  forceful 
men,  are  needed;  must  be  had.  That  goes 


S3  LIFE 

without  saying.  Given  the  opportunity, 
however,  the  man  must  not  only  be  pre- 
pared to  do  the  work  to  be  done,  must  not 
only  have  the  requisite  force,  but  he  must 
be  properly  directed.  Men  are  wanted  who 
when  given  the  gun  can  hit  tne  mark. 
Some  men  couldn't  hit  the  ground  if  they 
fell  out  of  a  tree.  Theories  are  well  enough 
in  their  place  but  men  cannot  always 
theorize.  The  time  of  action  must  come 
and  when  this  is  at  hand  mere  theory  is  and 
should  be  at  a  discount.  It  is  true  that  a 
hypothesis  is  found  at  the  base  and  origin  of 
all  knowledge.  But  this  is  only  in  the  tenta- 
tive stage  of  things,  for  a  hypothesis  being 
a  mere  supposition  there  are  no  limits  to 
hypotheses  other  than  that  of  the  human 
imagination,  and  therefore  these  may  be 
made  to  embrace  anything  and  everything. 
A  theory,  a  hypothesis,  that  cannot  be 
proven  is  therefore  little  better  than  a  guess. 
And  anybody  can  guess,  one  guess  being  as 
good  as  another  until  proof  is  furnished. 
When,  however,  the  guess  has  been  made 


LIFE  89 

and  proof  positive  is  forthcoming  then  the 
time  for  action  is  at  hand.  And  it  must  be 
seized  and  firmly  held,  otherwise  irresolu- 
tion spoils  all.  The  pale  and  sickly  cast  of 
thought,  which  forever  deliberates,  char- 
acterizes the  inefficient,  the  cowardly  and 
the  worthless.  And  yet  among  the  dream- 
ers are  many  most  lovable  souls.  It  may 
be  that  these  furnish  much  of  value  to  the 
world.  Their  thoughts,  however,  can  only 
be  of  value  when  transmuted  into  action  by 
men  of  sterner  stuff.  Thomas  Carlyle,  that 
great  thinker,  sets  forth  in  trenchant  style 
the  proper  relation  between  the  idea,  the 
thought  and  theory  of  things,  upon  the  one 
side  and  action  upon  the  other,  thus: 
"  Every  man,  every  situation,  has  a  duty, 
an  ideal,  which  follow  or  be  damned." 
"  Do  what  thou  canst,  be  it  ever  so  little 
thou  art  able  to  do — do  it  in  God's  name. 
Up!  Up!"  And  again  he  says:  "Con- 
viction is  useless  until  it  convert  itself  into 
conduct."  And  yet  no  man,  I  think,  has 
more  forcibly  set  forth  the  power  of  the 


9o  LIFE 

ideal  over  the  lives  of  men  and  the  work  of 
the  world.  Surely,  I  would  not  for  a  mo- 
ment be  understood  as  belittling  the  power 
of  ideas  for  it  is  the  low  idea  or  the  lack  of 
ideas  that  belittles  a  man  while,  conversely, 
a  great  idea  will  raise  a  clod.  And  Mr. 
Carlyle  has  set  forth  this  truth  most  clearly. 
"  Is  not  a  symbol,"  he  says,  "  for  him  who 
has  eyes  to  behold  it  some  dim  revelation 
of  the  God-like?"  And  ideas  exert  their 
force  most  powerfully,  too,  upon  men  and 
women  who  are  not  ordinarily  considered 
thoughtful,  for  it  is  eternally  true  that  all 
men,  even  the  most  ignorant  and  besotted, 
live  in  their  thoughts.  The  soldier  follows 
his  flag.  But  the  flag  is  for  him,  and  for  us 
all  I  trust,  a  symbol,  an  ideal,  a  represen- 
tation of  something  unseen.  Behind  its 
folds  stand  the  immortal  fathers  of  the 
revolution,  the  firm  resolve  of  Bunker  Hill, 
the  glories  of  Yorktown  and  the  deathless 
fame  of  Washington.  In  it  we  see  the 
symbol  of  liberty,  our  homes,  our  firesides 
and  all  we  hold  most  dear.  Behind  so 


LIFE  91 

many  yards  of  bunting  we  behold  the  ideal 
for  which  men  are  ever  ready  to  die.  But 
glorious  as  are  symbols  and  ideas  they  are 
valueless  unless  joined  'to  action.  Our  flag 
is  indeed  a  grand  one  but  it  is  grand  in  our 
eyes  only  because  it  represents  deeds  done 
and  actions  performed.  And  its  grandeur 
will  depart  whenever  we  are  unwilling  to 
defend  its  folds  with  shot  and  shell!  Deeds 
are  yet  required.  Our  sons  must  still  sup- 
port the  standard  our  fathers  raised.  And 
they  must  support  in  the  same  way,  by  ac- 
tion, by  deeds  of  daring  and  the  exercise  of 
that  supreme  quality;  manly  courage.  For 
this  thereis  no  substitute.  Nothing  has  ever, 
or  can  ever,  take  its  place.  They  say  that 
God  Almighty  hates  a  coward.  How  this 
may  be  I  do  not  know.  The  fact  is  my 
facilities  for  finding  out  things  like  that 
are  meager  indeed.  I  cannot  say.  But  this 
I  will  aver:  The  American  people,  among 
whom  you  my  dear  sir  are  to  live  have  an 
infinite  contempt  for  lack  of  nerve  which 
if  you  show  they  will  take  no  pains  to  con- 


92  LIFE 

ceal.  And  courage  is  not  only  required 
upon  the  battlefield,  it  must  be  shown 
every  day  of  our  lives  in  the  work  of  the 
world  we  are  called  upon  to  do.  Why  do 
men  lie  and  women,  alas,  prevaricate?  The 
reason  is  this:  They  fear  to  tell  the  truth. 
The  worker  needs  courage  as  much,  per- 
haps more,  than  the  soldier.  "  Truth  is  a 
sweet  mistress  but  only  the  very  brave  may 
follow  her."  And  whoever  undertakes  to 
follow  truth  will  I  can  assure  you  have 
abundant  opportunity  to  put  in  practice  all 
the  courage  he  may  possess  or  can  acquire. 
But  it  must  be  summoned.  Courage  is  re- 
quired. He  who  has  it  not  may  as  well 
retire  and  acknowledge  himself  beaten  in 
the  strife.  It  may,  however,  be  gradually 
developed.  Harriet  Martineau,  I  think  it 
was,  who  wrote :  "  Each  and  every  man 
owes  it  to  society  to  calmly  and  disoassion- 
ately  set  forth  with  supreme  disregard  to 
the  opinions  of  others  what  to  him  seems 
just  and  true." 

Think  this  over  carefully  and  then  un- 


LIFE  93 

dertake  to  practice  it  and  you  will  have 
abundant  opportunity  to  exercise  what  I 
have  called  the  supreme  virtue — courage. 
And  yet  this  is  the  message  to  the  world 
specially  confided  to  you.  "  What  to  you 
seems  just  and  true."  This  is  the  measure 
of  truth  given  into  your  keeping.  And  yet 
I  will  venture  to  remark  that  but  few  who 
have  begun  to  think  for  themselves  dare 
fully  and  unqualifiedly  support  and  defend 
through  good  and  evil  report  all  they 
think  to  be  true.  Still,  by  so  much  as  we 
fail  in  this  by  so  much  are  we  false  to  our 
God,  to  our  fellows  and  to  ourselves. 

We  may,  however,  comfort  ourselves 
with  this  :  The  work  of  the  world  has  al- 
ways been  done  by  very  imperfect  men  and 
women.  Though  strength,  force,  power,  in 
some  direction  has  always  been  manifested. 
Look  at  the  bible  worthies.  One  can  easily 
fling  a  cat  through  the  rents  in  the  reputa- 
tions of  many  of  these  people.  And  yet  in 
every  instance  some  strong  faculty,  some 
abiding  conviction,  some  supreme  quality, 


94  LIFE 

saved  the  hero,  the  sage  and  the  prophet, 
separating  him  from  the  wastrel  and  the 
brute.  The  most  that  any  one  can  hope  to 
be  remembered  for  is  a  sentence  or  two, 
some  few  words  of  cheer,  a  deed,  an  act,  a 
helping  hand  to  some  groping  fellow 
traveler  upon  life's  thorny  path.  Let  us 
then  nobly  resolve  despite  our  weakness 
and  past  failures  to  leave  behind  us  some 
footprint  upon  the  sands  of  time,  which : 

"  A  forlorn  and  shipwrecked  brother 
Seeing,  shall  take  heart  again." 

Time  would  fail  me  were  I  to  undertake 
to  rehearse  the  instances  in  the  history  of 
noted  men  and  women  showing  the  truth  of 
my  statement  that  very  imperfect  men  have 
done  and  must  in  future  do  the  work  of  the 
world.  This  is  known  to  be  true  and  yet 
it  may  be  well  for  me  to  attempt  to 
strengthen  the  conviction  already  existing, 
for  there  are  those  who,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  attack  this  view.  These  people  tell 
us  that  men  must  first  be  made  better  be- 
fore they  are  capable  of  any  good  thing, 


LIFE  95 

when  in  fact  they  should  first  do  some  good 
thing  that  they  may  thereby  be  made  better. 
One  must  do  what  he  can,  now.  This  will 
give  him  strength  for  the  next  act.  All  his- 
tory shows  the  weakness  and  fallibility  of 
human  instruments  and  it  as  clearly  shows 
the  all-conquering  march  of  the  race  up- 
ward to  higher  planes  of  thought  and 
action.  The  factors  employed  have  ever 
been  imperfect  men  and  women.  These 
will  continue  to  be  the  factors  in  all  human 
action.  There  are  no  others.  Even  though 
imperfect  let  us  drag  some  stone  of  error 
from  the  roadway  traversed  by  those  who 
shall  come  after  us.  But  we  shall  have  op- 
position even  in  this.  Olive  Wendell 
Holmes  compares  the  dawning  of  a  new 
idea  to  the  turning  over  of  a  stone  long 
embedded  in  the  soil.  After  a  realistic  de- 
.scription  of  the  blind  and  wriggling  crea- 
tures which  find  a  habitation  under  the 
rock  he  says :  "  But  no  sooner  is  the 
wholesome  light  of  day  let  in  upon  this 
compressed  and  blinded  community  of 


96  LIFE 

creeping  things  than  all  of  them  which  en- 
joy the  luxury  of  legs — and  some  of  them 
have  many — rush  'round  wildly  butting 
each  other  and  everything  in  their  way, 
and  end  in  a  general  stampede  for  under- 
ground retreats  from  the  region  poisoned 
by  sunshine." 

The  light  of  truth  hurts  only  noxious 
things.  Noxious  things,  however,  do  not 
know  themselves  as  such.  Some  of  them 
have  very  effective  stings. 

In  directing  our  work  we  must,  at  last, 
depend  upon  ourselves.  Each  must  select 
for  himseH  the  particular  field  in  which  he 
will  labor.  Or,  possibly  this  has  been 
selected  for  him  by  the  peculiar  constitution 
of  his  mind.  "  Be  what  nature  intended  you 
to  be/'  said  one,  "  and  you  will  succeed. 
Be  anything  else  and  you  are  ten  thousand 
times  worse  than  a  failure."  And  I  will  add 
happy  above  all  the  sons  of  men  is  he  who 
is  able  through  life  to  follow  the  natural 
bent  of  his  mind.  This  natural  bent  is  the 
stamp  of  the  Creator  which  should  show 


LIFE  9? 

him  his  work.  Let  him  be  wise  in  his 
choice. 

Possibly  it  may  be  unwise  to  point  out 
some  of  the  principles  regarded  by  me  as 
of  great  value  in  determining  the  false  from 
the  true,  and  thus  in  directing  our  work  in 
the  world.  I  shall,  however,  venture  very 
briefly  to  note  some  of  these. 

First:  It  may  be  said  with  absolute  truth 
in  the  words  of  Victor  Hugo :  :<  There  are 
no  bad  plants,  or  men,  only  bad  cultiva- 
tors." The  Great  Spirit,  we  are  told,  sur- 
veyed his  work  and  pronounced  it  all  "  very 
good."  It  is  good,  and  evil  does  not  exist 
as  a  positive  entity.  What  appears  to  us  as 
evil  is  either  imperfect,  excessive  or  mis- 
directed good.  Let  us  undertake,  for  a 
moment,  to  create  a  line  of  demarkation, 
placing  upon  one  side  of  this  every  quality 
considered  evil — for  good  and  evil  are 
simply  qualities  attached  to  things — and  on 
the  other  all  those  qualities  ordinarily  con- 
sidered good,  or  of  value  to  men.  We  shall 
now  become  convinced  that  of  all  thus 


98  LIFE 

labeled  "  good  "  there  is  absolutely  nothing 
not  capable  of  perversion  or  of  becoming 
bad.  We  shall  also  see  that  r.11  named  evil, 
under  certain  circumstances,  is  capable  of 
use  and  of  becoming  of  value  to  man.  Evil 
exists,  in  this  world  at  least,  only  in  the 
mind  of  man,  and  resides  there  simply  and 
only  as  imperfect,  excessive  or  misdirected 
good. 

Secondly:  Everything  of  value  to  man 
results  from  a  proper  harmonization  of  op- 
posing forces.  Nothing  considered  good 
exists  which  does  not  arise  from  an  equi- 
librium first  maintained  between  antagonis- 
tic powers,  conditions  or  qualities.  Man 
himself  affords  a  striking  example  of  this. 
Harmony  must  be  established  between  the 
physical  and  the  mental,  between  the  ani- 
mal and  the  intellectual.  If  either  is  in  ex- 
cess harm  results  and  evil  is  produced.  The 
true  man,  the  wise  man  and  the  successful 
man  is  the  product  of  the  equilibrium  be- 
tween soul  and  body  first  established. 
Mens  sano  in  cor  pore  sano.  And  this  duality 


LIFE  99 

of  things  ascends  to  the  highest  space  and 
descends  to  the  lowest  depths.  It  com- 
prises all.  The  solar  system  is  held  in  place 
by  the  equilibrium  first  maintained  between 
centrifugal  and  centripetal  forces.  Day  and 
night,  heat  and  cold,  positive  and  negative, 
summer  and  winter,  light  and  darkness, 
male  and  female,  and  all  forces  of  the  uni- 
verse repeat  the  law.  All  of  value — and 
even  life  itself — comes  from  the  harmoniza- 
tion of  opposing  forces.  All  harm,  or  evil, 
arises  from  a  lack  of  harmonization;  from 
imperfect,  excessive  or  misdirected  effort. 
This  may  be  extended,  I  think,  to  every 
field  of  inquiry.  I  shall  not  here  attempt  to 
illustrate. 

Thirdly:  In  forming  our  opinions  we  are 
restricted  to  two  methods,  for  there  are  but 
two.  First;  one  must  judge  of  new 
thoughts  presented  to  him  by  comparing 
them  with  his  own:  or,  Secondly;  he  must 
judge  of  them  by  his  opinion  of  the  man 
who  utters  them.  The  cecond  is  said  to  be 
the  distinctively  feminine  method.  If  a 


ioo  LIFE 

woman  likes  a  person  or  a  speaker  she  is 
said  to  be  nearly  sure  to  approve  what  he 
may  say  that  is  new  or  theretofore  un- 
known to  her.  That  this  is  a  distinctively 
feminine  method  I  most  emphatically  deny. 
The  uninformed  man  fashions  what  he  calls 
his  opinions  in  this  way.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  has  no  opinions.  He  has  only 
prejudices.  And  prejudice  is  the  idea's 
poor  relation;  prejudice  and  opinion  bear- 
ing much  the  same  relation  to  each  other 
that  gizzards  do  to  respectable  stomachs. 
And  when  we,  for  of  course  we  have  all 
passed  beyond  the  gizzard  stage,  attempt 
to  pass  upon  the  value  of  thought  by  com- 
paring it  with  our  own,  we  are  appalled  by 
the  fact,  soon  discerned,  that  our  own 
thought,  our  only  measure,  is  imperfect 
and  faulty.  Alas !  how  imperfect  and  faulty, 
then,  must  be  all  our  work. 

Some  years  ago  I  attended  a  cbbate  in 
which  important  matters  were  discussed. 
Both  sides  of  the  question  were  ably  pre- 
sented. At  the  close  a  person  present  said 


LIFE   \       :  r  fuf- 

to  me:  "When  you  hear  Mr.  —  -  of 

the  affirmative  you  think  he  is  all  right  and 
when  you  hear  Mr.  of  the  nega- 
tive you  think  he  is  all  right.  Now  what 
are  you  going  to  do?" 

Sure  enough,  what  is  such  a  person  to 
do?  The  trouble  with  this  person  was  that 
which  afflicts  all  uneducated,  uninformed 
men  and  women  in  this  world  of  ours.  He 
had  within  himself  no  continuing  citadel  of 
intelligence  upon  which  he  was  privileged 
to  reply.  It  is  for  us  who  have  begun  the 
ethical  struggle  to  remember  that  unless 
we  can  depend  upon  ourselves,  and  the 
God  within,  our  work  will  finally  be  re- 
jected and  we  ourselves  thrust  aside  as  of 
little  worth. 

Man  has  only  begun  the  work  of  the 
world.  True  education  can  never  stop 
short  of  the  Great  White  Throne  itself. 
Every  truly  intelligent  man  regards  himself 
as  a  student  and  a  learner  to  the  end  of  his 
days.  And  if  there  is  another  stage  of  ex- 
istence beyond  this  improvement  will  there 


ro2  LIFE 

continue.  For  myself  I  believe  there  is, 
and  I  believe  also  that  future  existence 
proves  pre-existence.  We  are  in  the  mid- 
dle of  things.  And  all  of  us  upon  an  ascend- 
ing scale.  Advance  is  the  law  of  the  Uni- 
verse. Some  may  have  advanced  further 
than  others.  But  for  every  son  and 
daughter  of  mortality  there  is  room  in  the 
Father's  House. 

For  us  all  there  is  but  one  law  and  one 
duty.  The  law  is  the  law  of  advance  and 
the  duty  is  to  "  Work  while  it  is  day,  for  the 
night  cometh  in  which  no  man  can  work.'' 


THE  PROGRESS  OF  MAN* 


|rimeval  man  was  a  savage.  He  built 
his  habitation  of  sticks  and  bark. 
Woman,  forced  thus  to  dwell  in  con- 
stant fearful  thought  of  the  deadly  crawling 
serpent,  spent  her  days  in  toil  and  her  nights 
in  fear.  Our  progenitors  lived  a  life  of  mere 
animalism,  oppressed  by  fearful  forebodings 
of  evil  things  to  come.  The  rustling  of  the 
leaves  upon  the  boughs  of  every  tree  be- 
tokened the  presence  of  influences  they 
were  anxious  to  placate.  Dominated  by 
fear  of  things  they  were  unable  to  under- 
stand, they  lived  a  life  we  can  now  look 
back  upon  only  with  feelings  of  deepest 
aversion  and  disgust.  Fear  was  the  con- 
trolling motive.  If  they  worshipped  it  was 
only  that  they  might  avert  the  avenging 


104.  LIFE 

stroke.  If  they  reveled,  it  was  with  antici- 
pations of  punishment  to  come.  Among 
savages  to-day  we  see  in  fetichism  a  sur- 
vival of  primitive  life  and  are  thus  enabled 
to  judge  of  the  effects  produced  by  the 
prevalence  of  fear;  that  worst  and  most  de- 
grading passion  known  to  man.  Under  its 
control  all  the  finer  emotions  shrivel  and 
die  and  there  is  built  up  among  men  the 
reign  of  tooth  and  claw;  of  mere  brute 
force. 

It  is  indeed  a  far  cry  from  that  distant 
day  to  ours;  from  such  a  scene  as  I  have 
faintly  sketched  to  the  homes  of  to-day 
surrounded  by  all  the  endearments  of  mod- 
ern life.  A  vast  distance  separates  us  from 
the  former  time.  Looking  backward  we 
are  enabled  to  trace  the  slow  and  devious 
progress  of  man.  The  story  of  this  ad- 
vance is  the  history  of  all  that  has  gone  be- 
fore. It  embraces  all  that  is  known  by  us. 
To  recount  all  the  steps  taken  or  to  attempt 
such  a  work  would  be  a  most  presumptu- 
ous undertaking;  time  would  net  suffice 


LIFE  105 

nor  my  abilities  allow.  But  to  set  forth  an 
opinion  regarding  the  manner  in  which 
man  has  advanced  may  perhaps  be  per- 
mitted. 

That  the  position  held  by  the  race  to-day 
is  vastly  superior  to  that  of  the  far-distant 
past  will  be  universally  admitted.  How 
this  has  come  about  and  by  what  means  is 
matter  for  serious  difference  of  opinion. 
And  yet  the  steps  tuken  are  in  the  main 
clearly  to  be  seen.  Most  of  us  are,  however, 
held  and  bound  by  the  power  of  precon- 
ceived opinion.  We  have  adhered  to  cer- 
tain views,  opinions,  or  prejudices  because 
of  the  accident  of  birth  in  this  or  that  coun- 
try; from  the  fact  that  we  belong,  through 
no  fault  or  merit  of  our  own,  to  this  or  that 
nationality,  and,  as  a  consequence,  to  this 
or  that  religion  or  school  of  thought.  Thus 
in  great  measure  our  opinions  have  been 
fixed  for  us  before  we  were  born.  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  was  right  in  saying  that 
to  properly  educate  a  boy  one  ought  to  be- 
gin with  his  grandmother,  for  if  this  an- 


io6  LIFE 

cestor  be  superstitious  and  a  believer  in 
signs  and  omens  the  effects  will  not  be 
wanting  in  the  life  of  the  boy.  That  the  re- 
sulting man,  of  whom  the  boy  is  father,  will 
have  some  pet  superstition  of  his  own  is  a 
fact  that  may  be  counted  upon  with  utmost 
certainty.  Thus  all  men  are  quite  naturally 
divided  into  opposing  schools  of  thought 
by  circumstances  over  which  they  have 
little  control.  Most  remain  mere  passive 
members  of  the  school  into  which  they 
were  born,  few  having  sufficient  individu- 
ality to  escape  the  mental  swaddling- 
clothes  provided  for  them  by  what  we  call 
heredity  and  environment.  So,  when  the 
subject  of  man's  advance  and  the  means  by 
which  it  has  been  secured  are  brought  for- 
ward, differences  of  opinion  are  to  be  ex- 
pected and  provided  for.  In  this  matter, 
as  in  most  others,  two  great  divisions  may 
be  made  to  contain  the  large  variety  of 
opinions  advanced. 

First:    There  are  those  who  strenuously 
assert  that  progress  can  only  be  secured  by 


LIFE  107 

change  first  effected  in  the  mind  of  man; 
that  man  must  first  advance  morally  and 
mentally  before  any  improvement  can  be 
hoped  for  in  social  and  economic  condi- 
tions. This  is  the  view  which  has  been 
quite  generally  held  and  is  even  now  advo- 
cated by  large  numbers  of  most  worthy 
people.  Substantially,  the  position  held  is 
this:  In  order  that  the  life  of  men  may  be 
placed  upon  a  more  elevated  plane,  that 
conditions  and  surroundings  with  them 
may  be  bettered,  that  material  progress 
may  be  secured,  they  must  first  rise  men- 
tally and  morally. 

Secondly:  There  are  those  who  tell  us 
that  it  can  be  shown  by  the  history  of  man's 
advance  in  the  past  and  by  the  most  con- 
vincing proofs  that  the  progress  of  the  race 
has  only  been  secured,  nationally  and  in  a 
large  and  general  way,  by  change  first 
effected  in  the  physical  or  economic  condi- 
tions surrounding  the  masses  of  the  people, 
and,  therefore,  that  the  first  step  in  man's 
future  advance  must  necessarily  establish 
for  him  improved  physical  surroundings. 


io8  LIFE 

The  difference  between  the  two  state- 
ments is  most  radical.  I  shall  attempt  to 
set  it  forth.  But  first  I  shall  proceed  to 
speak  of  progress  attempted  by  means  of 
appeals  chiefly  directed  to  the  moral  nature 
of  man.  However,  it  may  be  in  individual 
and  particular  instances,  the  moral  prog- 
ress of  a  nation  can  only  be  brought  about 
by  the  slow  spread  of  general  public  educa- 
tion and  enlightenment.  Before  any  great 
change  can  take  place  in  the  mental  life  of 
a  people  there  must  be  not  only  the  pro- 
mulgation of  new  truth  on  the  part  of  a 
more  enlightened  few  but  there  must 
also  occur  a  pronounced  change  in  the 
thought  of  the  masses.  Or  in  the  absence 
of  this  a  complete  breaking  up  of  old 
associations  and  conditions  by  the  inter- 
vention of  armed  force.  The  first,  the 
usual  and  ordinary  method,  is  the  evolu- 
tionary method,  which  proceeds  slowly 
and  with  but  little  regard  to  the  passage 
of  time.  The  second  is  the  revolutionary 
method  in  which  vase  changes  are  often 


LIFE  109 

brought  about.  But  even  by  this  method 
changes  to  be  permanent,  to  be  produc- 
tive of  general  advancement,  must  pro- 
ceed upon  the  lines  indicated  in  the  first 
method.  As  an  instance  we  have  the  French 
Revolution,  followed  by  the  The  Reign  of 
Terror.  Here  it  is  clearly  seen  that  al- 
though a  complete  political  change  was 
effected  the  general  mass  of  the  people  not 
being  prepared  for  the  new  doctrines  of  lib- 
erty, equality  and  fraternity,  a  return  was 
made  almost  immediately  to  the  military 
despotism  of  Napoleon.  Now  it  ought  to 
be  clear  and  plain  to  all  that  no  great  and 
salutary  change  can  take  place  in  the  life 
of  the  French  until  they  are  thoroughly 
prepared  for  it.  And  this  preparation  must 
embrace  not  only  a  mere  majority,  but,  in 
addition,  there  must  be  a  practical  unanim- 
ity of  thought  embracing  the  whole  body 
of  the  people.  Two  thousand  years  ago  the 
Greek  philosophers  promulgated  the  high- 
est truths.  Mixed  somewhat  with  the  bar- 
barity of  the  time  there  was  brought  for- 


no  LIFE 

ward  by  Plato  the  highest  possible  concep 
tions  of  life  and  duty  with  relation  to  the 
social  compact.  And  yet  upon  the  social 
life  of  the  Greeks  there  was  produced  no 
appreciable  effect.  Coming  down  to  our 
own  times  we  are  forcibly  reminded  of  the 
truth  here  set  forth.  The  evils  of  black 
slavery  had  been  clearly  seen  by  men  of 
advanced  minds  long  before  the  formation 
of  the  federal  compact.  But  by  the  general 
public  it  was  received  as  a  divine  institu- 
tion. For  a  generation  previous  to  the 
abolition  of  slavery,  however,  it  became  the 
great  and  burning,  moral,  economic  and 
political  question  ever  present  in  the  minds 
of  the  people.  Slowly  and  gradually  a 
change  was  effected  by  the  progress  of 
general  public  enlightenment  and  finally  it 
became  possible  to  appeal  to  sympathy  and 
sentiment;  those  powerful  and  most  effec- 
tive aids.  When  the  ground  had  been  thus 
prepared  by  universal  thought  and  general 
public  comment  and  discussion,  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe  launched  her  celebrated 


LIFE  in 

work  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin."  It  was  eager- 
ly read.  Its  teachings  were  received  and 
the  powerful  effect  of  sympathy  and  senti- 
ment in  a  cause  which  had  been  previously 
thoroughly  exploited  were  at  once  mani- 
fested. Had  Mrs.  Stowe  produced  her 
book  fifty  years  before  it  would  have  fallen 
dead  from  the  press.  She  would  have  been 
regarded  as  an  insane  enthusiast,  her  teach- 
ings as  destructive  of  public  order,  and  she 
herself  little  better  than  an  infidel,  in  that 
she  questioned  the  justice  of  a  divine  in- 
stitution. 

I  think  any  one  who  will  carefully 
examine  the  records  of  the  past  must  be 
convinced  that  mental  progress  can  be 
made  and  that  mankind  can  go  forward 
morally  only  by  means  of  the  slow  and 
gradual  progress  of  knowledge  among  the 
masses  of  men.  It  is  not  enough  thast  a  few 
be  possessed  of  the  truth,  for,  as  has  been 
abundantly  demonstrated  by  the  history  of 
the  past,  if  the  truth  which  the  few  who  are 
advanced  teach  is  new  enough  and  true 


ii2  LIFE 

enough,  they  will  simply  win  for  them- 
selves the  hatred  and  the  animosity  of  men. 
They  can  in  no  way  influence  public  action 
until  the  masses  of  men  are  prepared  by 
previous  education  to  receive  the  truth. 
Indeed  I  think  it  is  absolutely  certain  that 
truth  always  brings  harm  at  first  to  a  peo- 
ple not  previously  prepared  for  its  recep- 
tion. Afterward,  when  the  minds  of  men 
have  been  enlarged  and  their  eyes  opened, 
good  is  produced,  but  at  first  even  truth  is 
harmful.  Jesus,  the  great  Revolutionist, 
clearly  taught  this  and  was  certainly  aware 
of  it  when  he  said :  "  I  came  not  to  bring 
peace  but  a  sword. "  The  teaching  of  this 
man,  while  containing  the  veritable  truth 
of  God  Himself,  certainly  did  bring,  as  we 
now  see,  a  sword.  It  certainly  did  set  the 
son  against  the  father,  and  the  daughter 
against  the  mother,  as  he  foretold.  Society 
was  convulsed  and  the  sword  was  drawn  as 
a  result  of  the  promulgation  of  truth  which 
was  too  new  and  too  true  for  the  people 
who  heard  it.  The  religious  wars  which 


LIFE  113 

resulted  have  probably  cost  the  civilized 
world  more  lives,  more  misery  and  greater 
calamity  than  ever  proceeded  from  the 
teaching  of  error.  Indeed  everything  shows 
us  that  men  must  be  gradually  prepared  by 
the  slow  process  of  education  before  they 
are  enabled  to  profit  by  or  even  to  compre- 
hend the  truth.  All  history  indicates  this, 
and  as  human  nature  is  ever  the  same  the 
future  can  only,  in  a  general  way,  be  a  repe- 
tition of  the  past. 

Philosophers,  moralists,  philanthropists, 
have  all  attempted  to  change  the  current  of 
events  among  men  by  bringing  forth  what 
they  considered  new  truths.  No  doubt  these 
pronouncements  have  had  their  effect  in 
each  and  every  case.  No  truth  once  lodged 
in  the  mind  of  man  has  ever  been  lost, 
but  the  promulgators  have  always  been  dis- 
appointed in  their  thought  of  producing  im- 
mediate results.  The  new  truth  has  been  of 
service  only  by  slowly  modifying  previous- 
ly received  ideas.  The  new  has  never  at 
any  time  completely  supplanted  the  old. 


ii4  LIFE 

To-day,  as  in  the  past,  we  find  enthusiasts — 
men  of  the  most  sincere  convictions  and 
inspired  by  the  highest  motives, — who  are 
pursuing  the  course  followed  by  those  who 
have  preceded  them.  They  have  fondly 
imagined  it  possible  to  induce  the  great 
mass  of  men,  the  general  public,  the  body 
politic,  to  adopt  in  full  their  thought.  And 
yet  all  calm  observers  must  have  gradually 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  this  is  entirely 
and  absolutely  impossible.  Indeed  some  of 
the  wisest  observers  are  of  opinion  that 
it  is  impossible  for  man  to  hinder  or  ad- 
vance in  any  appreciable  degree  the  grad- 
ual evolution  of  the  race  from  the  lowest 
forms  of  savage  life  onward  and  upward  to 
the  plane  of  that  civilization  which  only 
the  future  can  know.  Yet  thousands  upon 
thousands  of  men  believe  that  if  it  be  possi- 
ble to  induce  a  mere  majority  to  pass  a  law, 
to  place  upon  the  statute  books  a  moral 
mandate,  that  thereby  the  thought  of  man 
and  his  daily  action,  which  proceeds  from 
that  thought,  can  be  completely  changed. 


LIFE  115 

No  greater  fallacy  has  ever  been  taught.  A 
people  can  only  advance  in  future  by  the 
slow  and  gradual  methods  which  are  seen 
in  the  long  and  devious  course  of  the  past 
to  have  there  been  effectual.  The  light  of 
the  past  is  the  only  guide  for  the  future. 

In  our  own  beloved  country,  government 
proceeds  from  the  majority.  It  is  sup- 
ported by  public  opinion,  and  public 
opinion  proceeding  from  an  imperfect  mass, 
being  modified  to  some  extent  by  the 
thought  of  the  evil  as  well  as  of  the  good, 
necessarily  represents  the  people  who  give 
it  expression.  If  we  are  to  support  the 
government  of  the  majority,  if  we  believe 
in  a  republican  form  of  government,  we 
are  obliged  to  say  that  this  imperfect  rule 
is  not  only  right  but  that  for  the  time  it  is 
the  best  possible  rule.  In  a  government  of 
the  majority  the  individual  citizen  is  the 
unit  and  each  unit  has  as  much  right  to 
have  his  opinion  expressed  in  law  as  any 
other,  for  it  would  be  manifestly  unjust  for 
a  few,  even  though  wiser  than  the  majority, 


n6  LIFE 

to  have  their  opinions  placed  in  the  manda- 
tory law  to  the  exclusion  of  the  wishes  of 
a  majority.  Government  and  a  code  of 
laws,  in  a  republic,  are  expressions  of  the 
will  of  the  people  and  are  always  represen- 
tative of  the  sum  total  of  the  character  of 
the  people  instituting  them.  Government 
in  a'republic  it  is  thus  seen  must  necessarily 
consist  of  a  continued  series  of  compro- 
mises between  opposing  shades  of  thought 
among  the  people,  if  all  are  represented. 
The  only  way  that  law  and  government  can 
be  permanently  bettered  and  advanced  is 
by  slowly  and  laboriously  changing  the 
thoughts  and  opinions  cf  the  masses  of  the 
people.  And  this  cannot  be  done  by  a  mere 
Act  of  Congress. 

Sir  William  Blackstone,  lays  down  this 
proposition:  "  All  valid  law" — and  hence 
all  rightful  public  action — "  is  based  upon 
that  instinctive  apprehension  of  justice 
which  finds  universal  lodgment  in  the  heart 
of  man."  I  believe  this  to  be  absolutely 
true.  Not  because  Blackstone  says  it  but 


LIFE  //7 

for  the  reason  that  it  appears  to  me  a  self- 
evident  truth.  If  this  be  true,  and  I  think 
it  impossible  for  any  man  successfully  to 
controvert  it,  it  should  be  clear  and  plain 
that  the  only  way  in  which  valid  law  can 
be  changed  for  the  better  is  by  the  slow 
process  of  gradually  informing  and  en- 
lightening the  public  mind  and  heart.  No 
doubt  these  statements  of  fact  will  be  ex- 
ceedingly disagreeable  to  those  ingenuous 
souls  who  earnestly  desire  the  speedy  ad- 
vent of  a  better  day.  And  yet  if  the  state- 
ments here  made  are  true,  if  in  the  way 
stated  it  is  plain  that  man  can  only  advance, 
it  is  the  duty  of  all  to  cheerfully  acquiesce, 
to  lay  aside  the  idea  of  immediately  bring- 
ing on  the  millennium  by  engrafting  upon 
the  statute  books  our  own  peculiar  notions, 
and  join  in  the  effort  to  gradually  change 
the  current  of  thought  prevalent  among 
men. 

Of  course  this  is  a  mighty  undertaking. 
In  this  great  work  no  man  can   hope  to. 
have  other  than  a  very  small  place,  and  in 


n8  LIFE 

the  final  result  it  is  probable  that  no  man's 
work,  that  of  no  single  individual,  can  be 
recognized. 

Give  the  Chinese  nation  a  Declaration  of 
Independence  and  a  United  States  Consti- 
tution and  nothing  with  them  would  be 
changed.  The  masses  of  that  people  could 
not  comprehend  these  instruments  or  their 
usefulness.  For  them  they  could  have  no 
usefulness.  Likewise,  for  us  the  proclama- 
tion of  a  perfect  law  would  be  out  of  place, 
and  for  the  same  reason.  As  with  the 
Chinese,  law  can  do  us  no  permanent  good 
unless  supported  by  an  almost  unanimous 
public  opinion. 

Even  in  monarchical  countries  public 
opinion  is  the  power  behind  the  throne 
greater  than  the  throne  itself.  In  Germany 
we  have  recently  seen  that  the  Emperor 
has  been  unable  to  carry  out  his  will  in  the 
matter  of  socialistic  repression.  Public 
opinion  would  not  justify  this  almost  abso- 
lute monarch  in  the  measures  proposed; 
and  this  was  sufficient  veto.  Even  in 


LIFE  119 

Russia,  half  civilized  as  it  is,  it  is  only  be- 
cause the  Czar  is  regarded  as  "  The  Little 
Father  "  and  next  in  authority  and  good- 
ness to  the  Great  Father  or  God  Himself 
that  he  is  enabled  to  reign  at  all.  But  for 
this  general  public  opinion  pervading  the 
Russian  nation  even  the  power  of  the  Czar 
would  vanish. 

In  our  own  country  public  opinion  is 
not  only  the  power  behind  the  throne  but 
it  constitutes  the  very  throne  itself.  Let 
us  suppose  a  time  of  public  alarm.  A  great 
fire  in  a  city.  There  is  gathered  a  crowd 
consisting  of  all  classes  and  conditions, 
fairly  representing  the  general  public.  In 
this  crowd  so  constituted,  let  one  cry  out: 
"This  man  has  stolen  my  pocket-book! 
Stop  thief!'''  Immediately  there  is  aroused 
an  universal  sentiment  favorable  to  the  man 
who  has  been  robbed  and  in  opposition  to 
the  thief.  If  the  thief  has  in  this  crowd  no 
confederates  not  a  single  hand  will  be 
raised  to  save  him.  Every  man  will  join  in 
assisting  in  his  arrest,  and  even  non-com- 


120  LIFE 

batants  will  point  out  with  the  greatest 
eagerness  the  course  the  escaping  mis- 
creant has  taken.  The  thief  himself,  if  ap- 
prehended, will  not  deny  the  justice  of  his 
arrest.  His  only  defense  will  be  denial.  He 
will  say:  "  If  I  am  guilty  it  is  right  that  I 
should  be  punished."  Regarding  theft 
public  opinion  is  unanimous,  and  for  this 
reason  theft  can  never  endanger  the  public 
welfare  or  corrupt  the  morals  of  the  people. 
Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  in  the 
same  crowd  just  described  a  policeman  en- 
deavors to  arrest  a  man  whom  he  declares 
is  an  illegal  seller  ^of  liquors  and  at  once 
a  very  different  state  of  affairs  will  present 
itself.  The  crowd  will  hoot  and  jeer  the 
policeman  and  endeavor  to  secure  the 
escape  of  the  offender.  No  hand  will  be 
raised  to  assist  the  officer  of  the  law  and  he 
will  pursue  his  task  under  the  greatest  diffi- 
culties. Public  opinion  does  not  support 
the  officer  in  the  performance  of  duty.  The 
reason  is  thus  clear  to  the  honest  observer 
why  the  enforcement  of  a  prohibitory 


LIFE  121 

liquor  law  is  almost  impossible.  In  country 
districts,  where  public  sentiment  univers- 
ally favors,  the  law  can  be  enforced.  In- 
deed there  will  probably  arise  no  occasion 
for  its  enforcement.  But  in  cities  where 
this  public  opinion  is  lacking  prohibitory 
liquor  laws  have  never  been  enforced  and 
can  never  be  productive  of  good  until  a  vast 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  minds  not 
only  of  the  moral  few  who  need  no  law  but 
of  that  larger  and  indifferent  class  who  com- 
pose the  majority.  Indeed  it  is  probable  that 
the  attempt  to  enforce  law  not  supported  by 
an  almost  unanimous  public  opinion  is  pro- 
ductive of  the  most  serious  and  detrimental 
consequences.  No  doubt  church  going  is 
beneficial  and  the  habit  of  value,  but  sup- 
pose a  law  passed  enforcing  church  attend- 
ance. Is  it  not  plain  that  such  a  law  would 
have  an  evil  effect?  That  not  only  would 
it  be  a  dead  letter  but  that  the  final  result 
would  be  a  lessening  of  church  attendance? 
Who  would  go  to  church  if  the  law  de- 
clared he  must?  A  feeling  cf  antagonism 


122  LIFE 

would  be  aroused,  not  only  against  the  law 
but  the  feeling  of  antagonism  would  shortly 
be  made  to  include  the  churches,  and  even 
religion  itself  would  be  endangered. 

From  what  has  been  said  I  think  we  may 
deduce  this  fundamental  truth:  Laws  in- 
tended mainly  to  promote  moral  reform 
must  never  precede  public  opinion.  True 
law  is  first  formed  in  the  heart  of  man.  Its 
engraftment  upon  the  statutes  is  simply 
and  only  the  record  of  a  pre-existing  fact. 
Misapprehension  of  this  truth  has  caused 
in  the  past  and  will  undoubtedly  in  the 
future  cause  vast  and  lamentable  disap- 
pointment. 

Previous  to  that  tremendous  upheaval, 
the  French  Revolution,  the  minds  of  men 
throughout  the  civilized  world  had  been 
largely  influenced  by  the  writings  of  Rous- 
seau and  the  French  philosophers.  They 
taught  the  brotherhood  of  man  and  coun- 
seled the  practice  of  all  the  virtues.  Im- 
pressionable natures  wrere  deeply  moved. 
The  opinion  was  prevalent  that  the  world 


LIFE  123 

was  upon  the  eve  of  vast  changes  for  the 
better.  The  oppression  of  the  ancient 
regime  had  aroused  a  deep  and  powerful 
sympathy  with  the  French  people.  When 
the  States  General  was  summoned  great 
hopes  were  entertained  from  the  action  of 
that  bo'dy.  Indeed  it  did  'much  to  support 
this  view.  During  the  long  time  that  the 
first  convocation  was  in  session,  containing 
as  it  did  many  of  the  wisest  and  best,  it 
gave  utterance  only  to  the  most  exalted 
sentiments,  bringing  to  the  support  of  the 
cause  of  the  common  people  in  France  the 
earnest  advocacy  of  many  in  England  and 
America.  The  poet  Wordsworth  and  the 
statesman  Burke,  among  others,  were 
moved  to  declare  that  a  new  era  had 
dawned  upon  the  world ;  that  humanity  was 
now  to  take  the  long-hoped-for  forward 
step.  It  seemed  indeed  to  them  that  a 
golden  age  was  near  at  hand,  and  expecta- 
tions were  raised  which  the  future  rudely 
dispelled.  Afterward  the  worst  passions 
of  men  were  aroused  and  in  the  Reign  of 


124  LIFE 

Terror  the  French  nation  was  plunged  into 
a  frightful  abyss,  an  almost  literal  hell. 
!  Seeing  this,  very  many  throughout  the 
world  who  had  advocated  the  cause  of  the 
people  lost  all  hope.  Wordsworth,  in  par- 
ticular, seemed  to  lose  all  faith  in  man  and 
in  his  ability  rightly  to  govern  himself. 
Burke,  from  being  an  advocate  of  the  rights 
of  man,  became  the  most  ardent  and  un- 
flinching supporter  of  monarchical  power. 
Evidently  it  had  been  supposed  that  a  mere 
temporary  change  of  mind  had  altered  the 
character  of  the  French  people. 

I  have  thus  endeavored  to  state  what  ap- 
pears to  me  a  great  fact,  to  wit:  Moral 
progress  pursued  as  a  direct  end  can  only 
be  secured  in  a  general  and  public  way  by 
the  spread  of  education  and  enlightenment. 
But  while  I  consider  this  to  be  absolutely 
true,  it  can  also  be  established  without  ques- 
tion that  economic  reform  rests  upon  an 
entirely  different  basis.  This  fact,  which  I 
consider  of  supreme  importance  in  any  in- 
quiry made  regarding  the -advance  of  the 


LIFE  J25 

race,  has  been  singularly  obscured  in  the 
minds  of  many  well-meaning  and  eminent 
men.  Men,  too,  who  are,  it  would  appear, 
sincerely  desirous  of  the  welfare  of  their 
kind.  It  is  held  by  this  class,  almost  with- 
out exception,  that  it  will  be  impossible  to 
secure  betterment  in  man's  social  condition 
without  a  pre-existent  change  in  his  mind. 
In  short  the  opinion  is  unhesitatingly  ad- 
vanced that  men  must  be  made  morally 
better  before  they  are  able  to  advance. 
In  the  minds  of  men  so  influenced 
all  effort  is  bent  in  the  direction  of  moral 
advance  with  the  idea  that  this  is  absolutely 
essential  to  a  change  in  material  surround- 
ings, when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  process 
should  be  reversed,  a  change  in  surround- 
ings being  the  first  necessary  step.  The 
misapprehension  of  fact  in  this  matter  is  of 
controlling  importance,  leading  as  it  does 
away  from  the  truth.  And  yet  the  very 
men  who  are  so  insistent  upon  moral  teach- 
ing as  the  first  essential  would  scarcely  un- 
dertake to  lecture  to  a  public  body  placed 


126  LIFE 

in  an  uncomfortable  or  dangerous  position. 
Brought  down  to  a  matter  of  actual  prac- 
tice they  would  know  very  well  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  them  to  influence 
an  audience  in  the  right  direction  unless 
material  conditions  were  favorable.  If  sur- 
roundings are  dangerous  and  disquieting 
the  effort  to  improve  the  minds  of  men,  it 
is  plain,  must  be  .given  up.  At  the  time  of 
the  French  Revolution  a  mental  change 
had  been  effected  in  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple, but  their  physical  surroundings  and 
economic  conditions  remained  the  same  as 
before;  hence  the  Reign  of  Terror  and  the 
relapse  into  the  arbitrary  government  of 
Napoleon.  It  will  be  remembered  that  that 
great  teacher  of  morals,  the  Galilean  Car- 
penter, first  fed  the  multitude  and  when 
they  were  comfortably  filled  he  taught 
them.  !  So  it  must  be  clearly  apparent  to  all 
unprejudiced  observers  that  it  is  impossible 
to  raise  a  nation  morally  unless  its  econo- 
mic surroundings  are  first  improved.  And 
this  truth  has  a  clear,  fundamental,  physio- 


LIFE  127 

logical  basis.  Man  is  unquestionably,  phy- 
sically at  least,  the  product  of  two  factors, 
heredity  and  environment.  TKese  two, 
when  fully  examined,  are  found  entirely 
sufficient  to  account  for  every  fiber  of  his 
body  and  most  of  the  thoughts  of  his  brain. 
And  while  the  two  agencies  seem  to  be 
clearly  separate  in  their  influence  upon  his 
life  and  character,  yet  if  we  examine  more 
narrowly  we  shall  see  that  what  is  called 
heredity  is  simply  and  only  the  result  of 
previous  environment.  Esquimo  heredity 
brings  down  from  former  generations  the 
results  of  former  Esquimo  environment. 
Surroundings  have  made  them  just  what 
they  are.  In  the  case  of  the  Esquimo  we 
are  able  to  see  that  this  is  true  only  because 
we  view  him  as  entirely  apart  from  our- 
selves. Self-interest  and  its  attendant  preju- 
dices do  not  interfere  with  that  clearness  of 
vision  which  usually  attends  our  thought  of 
others.  But  this  is  as  surely  true  of  our- 
selves, only  with  us  amid  the  multiplicity  of 
influences  surrounding  civilized  men  we 


128  LIFE 

are  sometimes  unable  to  trace  effects  to 
their  original  causes.  And  yet  every  habit 
of  man  and  every  lineament  of  his  face  may 
be  traced  by  care  and  study  to  pre-existent 
conditions  affecting  himself  or  his  ances- 
tors. Heredity  is  only  the  result  of  a  former 
environment.  Conditions  make  men,  and, 
in  the  long  run,  control  them  completely. 
Take  the  best  and  most  genial  family  you 
know,  deprive  them  of  property,  take  from 
them  the  means  of  living  in  what  they  will 
regard  as  a  decent  manner,  thrust  them 
into  a  dirty  tenement  in  the  slums  of  a 
great  city,  surround  them  with  vile  men 
ana  viler  women,  and  sooner  or  later,  if  the 
family  can  see  no  hope  of  better  conditions, 
they  will  sink  to  the  plane  of  the  miserables 
by  whom  they  are  surrounded.  If  the  first 
generation  by  some  miracle  be  preserved 
we  know  that  the  second  must  follow  the 
course  forced  upon  it  by  its  surroundings. 
Nobody  having  an  ounce  of  wit  or  sense 
would  think  for  a  moment  of  bringing  up 
a  child  in  the  ways  of  propriety  who  still 


LIFE  J29 

remained  a  resident  of  the  slums.  The  first 
thing  to  do  would  be  to  take  it  away !  After- 
ward talk  of  morals  and  behavior  might  be 
in  order,  but  not  there.  And  men  are  but 
children  of  a  larger  growth,  and  moved 
by  substantially  the  same  influences.  To 
improve  men  conditions  with  them  must 
first  be  changed  by  stronger  forces  than 
they  themselves  can  command.  Wiser  men 
than  they  are  must  emancipate  them.  Slaves 
have  never  freed  themselves,  and  never  will. 
Men  advance  by  following  a  leader,  and  the 
leader  must  be  wiser  and  abler  than  the  led. 
"  If  the  blind  lead  the  blind  both  shall  fall 
together  in  the  ditch." 

Man  is  a  creature  of  conditions.  His  sur- 
roundings in  the  long  run  make  him  what 
he  is.  Once  upon  a  time,  long,  long  ago. 
the  Ethiopians,  or  Abyssinians,  were  in- 
structed in  the  principles  of  the  Christian 
religion.  Once  they  were  Christians.  Now, 
their  so-called  religion  is  little  better,  if  any, 
than  the  fetichism  of  the  savages  by  whom 
they  are  surrounded.  Not  long  ago  Great 


130  LIFE 

Britain  sent  its  convicts  to  Australia. 
Rather  unpromising  stock  upon  which  to 
build,  and  yet  the  children  of  these  thieves 
and  murderers  surrounded  by  free  air  and 
free  land  have  become  as  honest,  as  law 
abiding  and  as  promising  a  people  as  any 
upon  whom  falls  the  light  of  day. 

The  truth  is,  man  is  an  animal  organized 
upon  a  material  plane.  He  possesses  a 
mind,  a  soul,  it  is  true,  but  a  toothache  or  a 
sliver  under  the  nail  so  small  that  it  cannot 
be  seen  across  the  table  will  usually  destroy 
all  his  vaunted  superiority  to  the  brute. 

Clearly  by  the  law  of  nature  the  body  is 
first  in  point  of  time.  Long  years  are  spent 
in  preparing  a  body  before  the  mind  in  full- 
orbed  splendor  is  permitted  to  inhabit  its 
dwelling  place.  At  first  the  infant  repre- 
sents simple  animal  life;  it  possesses  no  in- 
tellectuality; not  until  the  body  has  come 
to  full  maturity — and  has  been  specially 
prepared  and  fitted  for  the  use  of  the  con- 
trolling principle — is  man  said  to  come  to 
years  of  discretion.  Thus,  according  to  the 


LIFE  j3i 

plan  and  purpose  of  the  Creator  conditions 
and  surroundings  are  first  made  propitious 
before  man,  in  his  best  estate,  can  be  said 
to  exist.  A  secure  dwelling  place  is  first 
prepared;  and  the  basis  is  a  physical  one. 
Conditions  are  first  made  favorable  and  the 
material  side  of  life  has  first  consideration. 
Those  who*  tell  us  that  the  race  must  first 
become  better  mentally  and  morally  before 
physical  progress  can  be  made  are  thus  op- 
posing the  plainly  written  laws  of  nature. 
For,  evidently,  in  a  large  and  general  way, 
as  shown  by  the  history  of  the  past,  the  race 
has  made  progress  mentally  only  after  ab- 
solutely necessary  physical  conditions  have 
been  met.  Man  is  the  microcosm  of  the 
universe,  an  epitome  of  all  that  has  gone 
before,  a  representation  in  miniature  of  the 
laws  and  purposes  of  the  Creator,  and  in 
man  we  see  the  working  out  of  a  plan  and 
purpose  we  are  certainly  wise  in  attempting 
to  follow;  and  the  way  is  plain,  is  indeed 
patent  to  all  who  will  observe. 

It  is  a  self-evident  proposition  that  prog- 


LIFE 

ress  must  proceed  in  consonance  with  the 
laws  controlling  the  two  great  factors  in  all 
human  action;  human  and  external  nature. 
Whatever  is  in  opposition  to  these  will 
come  to  naught.  True  progress  proceeds 
in  accordance  with  law.  And  we  must  re- 
member that  the  factors  in  all  progress- 
man  and  nature — are,  and  must  remain, 
through  all  ages  the  same.  Nor  can  we 
forget  that  whatever  has  been  found  in  the 
past  to  conflict  with  these  has  finally  come 
to  naught.  Nature  and  human  nature  re- 
main. The  laws  by  which  both  are  gov- 
erned have  never  changed  nor  is  it  likely 
that  in  this  world  at  least  they  ever  will.  If 
a  long  succession  of  events  has  in  past  ages 
shown  that  a  certain  course  is  in  opposition 
to  these  laws  it  is  not  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  a  new  trial  will  disclose  different  re- 
sults. And  yet  we  find  men  constantly  hop- 
ing that  a  new  effect  may  follow  old  causes 
if  only  new  names  be  given  them.  To  un- 
derstand men  and  properly  to  regard  them, 
we  must  take  them  as  they  are,  not  as  we 


LIFE  133 

might  wish  them  to  be.  The  world  in 
which  we  live  is  governed  by  certain  laws 
called  natural,  which  so  far  as  we  are  in- 
formed have  never  varied  or  changed  in  the 
smallest  particular.  The  factors  then  are 
the  world  as  it  exists  and  man  as  he  is.  The 
future  will  furnish  no  others.  Allow  me 
then  to  set  forth  what  seem  to  me  to  be 
fundamental  facts: 

First,  then,  we  may  say:  Man  is  an  ani- 
mal, absolutely  controlled  by  three  animal 
instincts.  These  dominate  his  life.  It  is 
true  that  these  animal  instincts  are  some- 
what controlled  by  his  intellectual  nature, 
and  yet  the  intellect  at  last  depends  for  its 
force  and  direction  upon  the  animal.  The 
first  law  that  controls  man  is  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation.  "  All  that  a  man  hath 
will  he  give  for  his  life."  This  instinct  is 
absolute  and  imperative.  No  man  in  his 
right  mind,  I  think,  has  ever  escaped  or 
ever  will  escape  its  power.  The  same  law, 
for  it  is  a  natural  law,  controls  all  animals. 
Threaten  your  cat  or  your  dog  and  the 


LIFE 

animal  will  do  precisely  as  you  would  under 
the  same  circumstances. 

The  second  animal  instinct  controlling 
man  is  the  desire  to  better  his  condition. 
All  men  are  subject  to  this  law.  Escape 
from  it  is  absolutely  impossible.  One  may 
fancy  that  future  conditions  with  him  may 
be  bettered  by  the  sacrifice  of  even  his  life, 
but  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  life  under  these 
circumstances  he  is  endeavoring  to  better 
his  condition.  The  philanthropist  may 
spend  his  years  in  endeavoring  to  benefit 
his  kind  but  he  does  this  from  a  desire  to 
better  his  own  condition.  He  has  a  tender 
and  sympathetic  heart  and  mind,  and,  if-  he 
fail  to  do  what  he  believes  himself  called 
upon  to  do,  he  would  suffer.  He  is  a  phil- 
anthropist because  suffering  would  come  to 
him  if  he  were  not.  His  condition  then 
would  be  worse.  He  seeks  to  avoid  the 
calamity  of  a  worse  condition  by  doing 
what  he  considers  to  be  his  duty.  And  this 
law  or  instinct  is  an  animal  one  controlling 
all  animals  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest. 


LIFE  ,35 

Life  being  first  secured  the  next  desire  is 
betterment  of  condition.  The  beast  of  prey 
and  the  beast  of  burden,  the  wild  animal 
in  his  lair  and  the  ox  in  his  stall  all  are  im- 
pelled by  this  fundamental  animal  instinct. 
This,  too,  is  the  motive  power  behind  that 
splendid  advance  man  has  made  from  sav- 
agery, or  perhaps  from  still  lower  condi- 
tions, up  to  the  present  plane  of  civilized 
life.  The  desire  to  better  his  condition 
animates  the  scholar,  impels  the  artist  and 
actuates  the  merchant.  The  desire  to  im- 
prcve  one's  condition  is  aligned  with  hope, 
that  vital  impulse  of  the  soul  of  man.  No 
matter  how  much  a  man  may  possess,  his 
constant  wish  is  for  more.  The  scholar  is 
never  satisfied  with  his  attainments  or  the 
rich  man  with  his  wealth.  Improvement, 
increase,  is  the  demand  of  the  mind  of  man, 
indeed,  it  is  a  vital  part  of  the  man  himself. 
He  must  constantly  gain,  in  some  direction, 
or  misery  is  the  result.  Increase  need  not 
be  great;  slight,  if  constant,  advance  will 
satisfy  his  nature.  But  this  demand  for  an 


136  LIFE 

advance  in  some  quarter  is  a  desire  im- 
planted in  the  soul  of  man  by  his  Creator. 
When  all  hope  of  future  gain,  of  some  sort, 
is  at  an  end  life  has  lost  its  charm  and  the 
man  is  ready  to  die.  Upon  this  funda- 
mental instinct  all  progress  depends.  ' 
Knowledge  is  capable  of  bringing  it  into 
harmony  with  intellectual  considerations. 
Then  true  advance  is  made.  The  instinct 
cannot  be  destroyed. 

The  third  natural  law  or  animal  instinct 
controlling  man  is  the  desire  to  propagate 
his  kind.  Under  this  head  come  love,  mar- 
riage, love  of  children,  the  home  and  the 
highest  and  holiest  aspirations.  But  this 
is  an  animal  instinct  and  is  equally  applica- 
ble to  every  form  of  animal  life.  Animals 
love  their  young  and  will  sacrifice  their 
lives  for  them.  Man  can  do  no  more. 

Man's  conduct  in  life;  his  mode  and 
manner  of  life,  all  his  thoughts  and  deeds 
are  subject  to  these  three  common  animal 
instincts.  It  is  impossible,  I  think,  for  one 
to  perform  any  act  in  the  whole  course  of 


LIFE  137 

his  life  that  does  not  come  under  one  of 
these  three  heads.  He  is  absolutely  bound 
by  these  laws.  No  man  in  his  right  mind 
has  ever  escaped  them  and  no  man  can 
escape  them.  They  are  the  laws  of  nature 
and  therefore  the  laws  of  God.  Looking 
backward  over  the  pages  of  history  we  see 
that  man,  if  free  to  chose,  has  been  con- 
trolled in  all  his  devious  way  by  them.  It 
follows  as  a  matter  of  course  that  he  will 
be  thus  controlled  in  the  future.  Whatever 
plan  may  be  conceived  by  man  for  the  bet- 
terment of  his  kind,  it  is  clear  and  ought  to 
be  self-evident  to  all,  that  it  must  be  con- 
sistent with  these  laws.  Nothing  can  suc- 
ceed not  in  accordance  with  them.  These 
are  the  demands  of  nature  upon  him  which 
he  cannot  disobey  if  he  would. 

No  doubt  it  will  be  exceedingly  distaste- 
ful to  many  to  consider  themselves  as  com- 
pletely controlled  by  these  animal  desires, 
and  yet  it  is  the  simple  truth  to  say  that  in 
the  long  run  man  in  the  mass  has  always 
been  thus  controlled.  Denial  or  disgust 


138  LIFE 

will  not  change  the  fact.  I  simply  state  a 
law  of  nature  patent  to  all.  Here  and  there 
in  individual  instances  the  contrary  may 
seem  to  be  true  but  these  isolated  instances, 
easily  explainable  upon  natural  grounds, 
are  only  the  exceptions  which  prove  the 
general  rule.  Mere  theories  cannot  be 
made  always  to  live  by  the  denial  of  well- 
known  facts. 

These  three  controlling  desires  pertain 
to  the  natural  world  upon  its  material  or 
physical  plane.  If  they  control  the  conduct 
of  man — and  painstaking  and  honest  in- 
quiry will  abundantly  prove  that  they  do — 
it  must  then  be  clearly  and  plainly  apparent 
how  and  why  material  conditions  surround- 
ing men  are  so  supremely  important.  Man 
simply  obeys  the  laws  of  his  being.  Nat- 
ural law — or  the  law  of  God — cannot  be 
broken;  never  was  broken.  It  may  for  a 
time  be  evaded  or  ignored,  but  it  cannot  be 
destroyed.  Natural  law  remains  to  the  end, 
continuing  to  assert  and  re-assert  itself,  de- 
stroying finally  all  who  refuse  tg  recognize 


LIFE  139 

it.  White  men  forced  to  live  the  life  of  the 
Esquimo  become  Esquimaux,  or  die. 
Forced  to  live  in  Africa  among  the  negroes 
they  adopt  the  manners  and  customs  of  the 
people  about  them,  and  their  children  will 
be  as  untamable  as  the  savages  by  whom 
they  are  surrounded.  The  empire  of  climate 
is  said  to  be  the  most  powerful  empire  upon 
the  face  of  the  globe,  and  this  is  true  be- 
cause climate  is  the  chief  agent  in  enforcing 
conditions  upon  men,  and  conditions  make 
men,  in  the  long  run  controlling  them  ab- 
solutely. Take  the  most  demure  and  care- 
ful mannered  man  in  your  community; 
force  him  to  dress  in  a  disreputable  manner, 
like  a  tramp,  force  him  to  continue  this  and 
he  will  end  by  being  a  tramp.  Surround 
him  with  thugs  and  bummers,  let  him  have 
no  other  companions,  and  if  he  Have  a 
strong  burly  frame  and  is  provided  with 
animal  courage  he  will  be  a  thug;  if  he 
lacks  these  qualifications  he  will  be  a  bum- 
mer. If  forced  to  live  the  life  I  have  only 
hinted  at  he  will  shortly  graduate  as  an 


LIFE 

all-around  "  tough  "  and  enemy  of  society. 
If  your  particular  mild-mannered  man  have 
within  him  the  survival  of  a  former  virtuous 
ancestry  he  may  escape  absolute  moral  de- 
filement, but  if  he  have  children  thus  sur- 
rounded they  cannot  escape. 

But  you  will  tell  me  that  men  are  not 
forced  to  live  as  I  have  described  and  I  say 
to  you  in  reply:  You  are  mistaken;  they 
are.  Go  to  the  nearest  lounging  place  of 
disreputable  men;  pick  out  a  dozen  and 
carefully,  laboriously  and  honestly  trace 
their  sorrowful  histories,  ~nd  you  will  finally 
be  convinced  that  in  eleven  cases  of  the 
twelve  those  men  could  scarcely  have  been 
other  than  they  are.  Nothing  happens  with- 
out a  cause  and  for  every  effect  there  is  an 
all-sufficient  cause.  These  men  are  the 
product  of  causes.  Bad  parentage,  and  bad 
surroundings  will  make  bad  men  and  they 
are  made  what  they  are  by  the  laws  of 
nature.  Nothing  happens.  All  is  subject 
to  law — natural  law.  Patient,  careful  in- 
ductive investigation  will  trace  out  these 


LIFE  141 

laws.  It  is  now  too  late  in  the  day  for  in- 
telligent men  to  refuse  the  evidence  of  their 
senses.  Ages  ago  this  might  have  been, 
and  was,  possible.  Men  then  imbibed  an 
opinion  with  mother's  milk  and  no  matter 
how  erroneous  stoutly  held  to  it  through 
life.  Now,  men  are  beginning  to  see  that 
figs  will  not  grow  on  thistles  or  grapes  on 
thorns  even  though  ever  so  much  talk  be 
indulged  in.  Facts  are  stubborn  things 
which  have  a  way  of  finally  making  them- 
selves respected.  Education  and  the  prog- 
ress of  enlightenment  count  for  something 
as  the  years  go  by  and  it  is  now  established 
in  the  minds  of  unprejudiced  men  that 
man's  progress  in  the  world  depends  upon  the 
general  spread  of  education  and  enlighten- 
ment, and  these,  in  turn,  are  dependent  upon 
previously  secured  improved  physical  and 
material  surroundings. 

We  read  that  desiring  to  raise  up  unto 
Himself  a  peculiar  people  the  Lord  brought 
the  children  of  Israel  up  out  of  the  land  of 
Egypt  and  the  house  of  bondage  and  gave 


142  LIFE 

them  a  promised  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey.  That  is.  He  first  provided 
favorable  material  surroundings.  And  these 
were  "  promised "  because  they  were 
known  to  be  absolutely  essential  to  the 
progress  of  man.  Even  Moses,  that  great 
leader  of  man,  was  unequal  to  the  task  of 
educating  and  enlightening  a  people  not  in 
possession  of  essential  material  and  physical 
surrounding's. 

The  first  requisite  to  ethical  citizenship  is 
the  freedom  of  the  citizen;  and  the  second, 
alike  imperative,  is  security  in  the  indi- 
vidual possession  of  property.  Given  these 
two,  progress  becomes  possible.  And  this 
is  clearly  seen  in  our  own  history.  Progress 
in  America  has  been  greater  and  more 
rapid  than  elsewhere  because  here  freedom 
and  security  in  the  possession  of  property 
have  been  more  generally  secured  than  has 
ever  before  been  the  case  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  evils  arising  from  an  im- 
perfect freedom  are  to  be  cured  only  by 
greater  freedom  and  larger  opportunity. 


LIFE  143 

"  Ye  are  to  know  the  truth  and  the  truth 
shall  make  you  free."  Freedom  is  the  end 
and  aim  of  life. 

The  future  is  to  be  known  by  the  past. 
If  it  can  be  shown  that  progress  in  the  past 
has  proceeded  upon  the  lines  here  laid 
down  it  will  be  universally  admitted  that 
future  advance  must  follow  the  same 
course.  Let  us  then,  very  briefly,  glance  at 
'  the  past,  and  in  doing  this  it  will  be  impos- 
sible here  to  do  more  than  merely  call  to 
mind  historical  events  well  known  to  all. 

Modern  civilization  is  held  to  date  its  be- 
ginning from  the  era  separating  modern 
from  medieval  days.  This  seems  not  to  be 
very  accurately  fixed  in  the  minds  of  his- 
torians. The  Renaissance  or  revival  of 
learning  is  generally  held  to  date  from  the 
close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  Protes- 
tant reformation  from  the  earlier  part  of  the 
sixteenth.  With  most  one  or  the  other  of 
these  is  held  to  mark  the  turning  point;  the 
idea  usually  inculcated  being  that  modern 
civilization  takes  its  rise  mainly  because  of 


//;  LIFE 

an  intellectual  impetus  rising  out  of  these 
events.  In  short  that  modern  advance  has 
a  mental  beginning. 

Careful  investigation  will,  on  the  con- 
trary, 'show  that  here,  as  everywhere  else  in 
the  history  of  the  world,  progress  made  and 
mental  advance  secured  were  entirely  de- 
pendent upon  previously  gained  improved 
physical  and  material  surroundings.  Look- 
ing back  to  the  beginning  of  modern  civili- 
zation in  Europe  we  can  see  that  it  was 
founded  upon  commerce  and  the  gradual 
extension  of  trade  which  began  as  mere 
piracy.  At  first  this  "  commerce "  was 
forced  by  dint  of  "  good  right  arms."  It 
began  upon  a  very  low  material  plane. 
There  was  no  "  moral  uplift  "  in  the  voy- 
ages of  the  "  Sea  Beggars  "  who  ravaged 
the  coasts  of  northern  Europe.  Gradually 
and  in  process  of  time  trade  upon  substan- 
tially the  present  basis  of  mutually  benefi- 
cial exchange  was  established.  Manners 
were  softened  and  knowledge  increased  by 
contact  of  man  with  man,  and  contact  came 


LIFE  145 

in  obedience  to  the  desire  of  men  quite  low 
in  the  mental  scale  to  better  their  material 
conditions.  As  early  as  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury we  see  the  rise  of  what  became  in  the 
fourteenth  century  a  vast  commercial 
power.  Hamburg,  Cologne,  Bremen,  Dan- 
zig, Lubeck,  Brunswick,  and  many  other 
cities,  joined  themselves  together  to  protect 
their  growing  commerce  under  the  name  of 
the  Hanseatic  League.  By  the  fourteenth 
century  this  league  embraced  every  city  of 
importance  between  Holland  and  Livonia, 
some  eighty-five  in  all.  These  cities  be- 
came known  as  "  Free  Cities."  Here  the 
first  trade  unions  or  guilds  were  formed  and 
for  the  first  time  the  ordinary  citizen  was 
enabled  to  accumulate  property  and  be 
secure  in  its  possession.  The  cities  em- 
ployed in  building  ships  and  manufacturing 
goods  for  sale  abroad  gradually  increased 
in  wealth  and  power;  wealth  was  fairly  dis- 
tributed and  improved  economic  conditions 
were  secured.  Afterward,  universities  were 
founded  and  art  and  the  sciences  began  to 


T*6  LIFE 

be  studied.  The  foundation  of  improved 
material  surroundings  had  first  been  sup- 
plied. Long  years  after  this  came  the 
Renaissance  and  the  Reformation.  Instead 
of  the  Renaissance  giving  rise  to  improved 
economic  conditions  the  contrary  was  the 
case — improved  conditions,  trade  relations, 
commerce  and  the  gradual  accumulation  of 
wealth  brought  about  the  revival  of  learn- 
ing. Florence,  held  as  the  center  of  influ- 
ence from  whence  spread  learning  and  a 
love  of  art,  had  long  been  a  rich  and  popu- 
lous commercial  center  renowned  for  its 
manufactures  and  foreign  trade.  The  Re- 
naissance took  its  rise  in  a  wealthy,  popu- 
lous community  where  economic  condi- 
tions were  most  favorable  to  the  industrious 
citizen.  As  a  result  of  commercial  develop- 
ment and  economic  progress  throughout 
Europe  serfs  in  commercial  cities  had  grad- 
ually thrown  off  their  burdens,  disabilities 
had  been  removed,  happiness  and  oppor- 
tunity increased  and  the  ordinary  man  was 


LIFE.  if7 

made  secure  in  the  possession  of  property 
long  years  before  Luther's  day. 

Under  improved  economic  conditions 
the  average  man  in  the  commercial  centers 
had  become  measurably  free  and  was  thus 
enabled  to  satisfy  that  innate  longing  for 
improvement  implanted  in  the  very  con- 
stitution of  man.  Hope  of  improvement, 
that  call  of  God  to  man :  "  Son,  come  up 
higher/'  he  was  enabled  to  answer.  The 
natural  desire  of  his  material  frame  was 
met.  Then,  mental  and  moral  advance  be- 
came possible.  The  progress  of  the  race 
has  been  always  secured  in  this  manner — 
and  in  no  other. 

A  good  many  years  ago  Thomas  Carlyle, 
one  of  the  most  acute  and  ablest  thinkers 
of  modern  times,  declared  that  the  Ameri- 
cans were  making  rapid  progress  only  be- 
cause a  comparatively  small  population  was 
possessed  of  a  fine  climate  and  a  large 
quantity  of  valuable  land.  That  is,  economic 
conditions  were  favorable.  The  rest,  his 


148  LIFE 

knowledge  of  the  world's  history  showed 
him  would  inevitably  follow. 

Progress  depends  absolutely  upon  man's 
possession  of  a  favorable  material  environ- 
ment. Then  the  demands  of  his  physical 
nature  can  be  met.  And  these  demands  are 
continually  advancing.  More  and  more  is 
constantly  required  to  fill  the  need  of  pro- 
gressive man.  Xo  matter  how  much  he 
may  have  gained  in  the  past,  more  will  be 
required  in  the  future.  The  demands  of 
nature  must  be  met;  and  will  be  met. 

Much  has  been  written  of  the  pleasures 
of  hope.  Hope  fills  the  soul  of  man  and 
buoys  him  up.  Without  hope  he  ceases  to 
exist  as  a  reasonable  and  sensible  being. 
But  what  is  the  subject  of  hope?  Ask  your- 
self that  and  the  answer  can  only  be :  better- 
ment of  condition;  hope  of  improvement; 
advance ;  progress !  We  have  already  noted 
that  this  is  the  second  fundamental  instinct 
underlying  all  animated  nature,  controlling 
the  movements  of  bird,  beast  and  man.  It 
is  also  seen  as  the  chief — if  not  the  only — 


LIFE  149 

mental  stimulus  inhabiting  the  soul.  It  is 
a  law  of  God.  Think  you  to  stifle  or  obliter- 
ate this  demand  of  man's  nature  by  your 
puny  book-made  laws  or  your  impious 
regulations  of  trade  and  exchange?  I  tell 
you  nay! 

Keeping  in  mind  this  fundamental  in- 
stinct implanted  in  man's  body  and  animat- 
ing his  soul,  demanding  constant,  unceas- 
ing, never-ending  betterment  of  condition 
— which  it  is  seen  must  be  preceded  and 
fostered  by  improved  material  and  physical 
surroundings;  seeing  too  that  the  standard 
of  comfort  and  possession  is  constantly  ris- 
ing with  man's  advance,  the  inference,  the 
irresistible  conclusion  is  this:  Industrial 
freedom  is  the  question  of  questions:  The 
riddle  of  the  Sphinx  of  Time  which  our 
society  will  answer  or  die! 


14  DAY  USE 

TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROW® 

LOAN  DEPT. 


REC'D  L 


LD  2lA-60m-3,'65 
(F2336slO)476B 


General  Library     . 
University  of  California 
Berkeley 


YB   12967 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


